Heartbreaker

By Claudia Dey

‘Devastating and wickedly funny … I loved it’ Sophie Mackintosh’
‘A dark star of a book’ Lauren Groff
‘I loved its every page’ Sheila Heti

It’s 1985 in The Territory and it always will be.

It’s so cold you can’t feel your feet and from here the outside world is just a dream, but two humans and one animal will show us the way. They’re each searching for someone, a woman who washed up on the shores of this far-flung town and then disappeared. To find her they will have to look deep into the darkness that lies at the edge of love.

Heartbreaker is an astounding feat of imagination with its own riotous rhythm and the resounding message that humanity can be found in the wildest of places.

Format: Paperback
Ageband: from 13
Release Date: 06 Feb 2020
Pages: 288
ISBN: 978-0-00-829511-0
CLAUDIA DEY is the author of the novel Stunt, a Globe & Mail and Quill & Quire Book of the Year. Her plays have been produced internationally and nominated for the Governor General’s and Trillium Book Awards. Dey’s writing has appeared in many publications including The Believer and The Paris Review. Dey has also worked as a horror film actress and cook in lumber camps across northern Canada, and is co-designer of Horses Atelier. She lives in Toronto. Heartbreaker is her UK debut.

”'Heartbreaker is an incandescent flare of a novel - acrobatic, devastating, and wickedly funny. It is effortlessly sly and fresh in its language, and I loved it” - Sophie Mackintosh, author of The Water Cure

”'Heartbreaker totally bewitched me. I love its outlandishness - its sizzling energy - the bright, fierce music in every sentence” - Leni Zumas, author of Red Clocks

”'A fierce exploration of memory and zeitgeist … Heartbreaker is a darkly comedic weirdo of a book that pulls the string of nostalgia from one side while unravelling it from the other” - The Paris Review

”'I read My Absolute Darling and discovered a transcendent teenage narrator in the form of Turtle Alveston. Pony Darlene Fontaine is a match for Turtle - an ordinary teenage girl in a wholly extraordinary world. Her voice will echo in your head for months - even years - to come” - Sam Baker, The Pool

”'This is a book like no other. It's eerie, it's cult-y, it's so very exciting, and I never wanted it to end” - Buzzfeed, Best Books of Fall 2018

”'Disturbed, seductive, and thrilling” - i-D

”'Behold the virtuosity of Heartbreaker! Claudia Dey has a perfect ear and the sharpest eye … devastating, unsparing and unforgettable” - Miriam Toews, author of All My Puny Sorrows

”'A whole-cloth, word-for-word triumph of imagination” - Publishers Weekly

”'This book gave me chills all the way through. It is deeply original - in its wildness, its structure, its wisdom, and its world. I floated in the perfection of its ending. I loved this novel's shining sensitivity. I loved its every page” - Sheila Heti, author of Motherhood and How Should a Person Be?

‘Beautiful … A perfect balancing act of dark and light’Claire Cameron, author of The Bear -

”'A dark star of a book, glittering with mordant humour and astonishing, seductive strangeness and grace. I am a giant fan of Claudia Dey’s wild brain” - Lauren Groff