The next book to be featured this season on the Sara Cox Radio 2 Book Club is The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey – a profoundly unnerving exploration of belonging in a world where some lives are valued less than other.
The book will be released on 15 May and Catherine’s interview with Sara is on BBC Sounds from Tuesday 13 May.
We have 10 copies to give away to one lucky book club – to enter, visit our offers page.
Not yet a member of Book Club Hub? Sign up now.
The Book of Guilt
England, 1979. Vincent, Lawrence and William are the last remaining residents of a secluded New Forest home, part of the government’s Sycamore Scheme. Every day, the triplets do their chores, play their games and take their medicine, under the watchful eyes of three mothers: Mother Morning, Mother Afternoon and Mother Night.
Their nightmares are recorded in The Book of Dreams.
Their lessons are taken from The Book of Knowledge.
And their sins are reported in The Book of Guilt.
All the boys want is to be sent to the Big House in Margate, where they imagine a life of sun, sea and fairground rides. But, as the government looks to shut down the Sycamore Homes, the triplets begin to question everything they have been told.
About the author
Catherine Chidgey is a novelist and short story writer whose work has been published to international acclaim. In a Fishbone Church won Best First Book at the New Zealand Book Awards and at the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in her region. In the UK it won the Betty Trask Award and was longlisted for the Orange Prize. Golden Deeds was Time Out’s book of the year, a Notable Book of the Year in The New York Times and a Best Book in the LA Times. She has won the Prize in Modern Letters, the Katherine Mansfield Award, the Katherine Mansfield Fellowship, the Janet Frame Fiction Prize, and the Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize for The Wish Child. Remote Sympathy was shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award and the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction, and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. The Axeman’s Carnival won the Acorn at the New Zealand Book Awards – the country’s biggest literary prize.
Raised in Wellington, New Zealand, Chidgey was educated at Victoria University and in Berlin, where she held a DAAD scholarship for post-graduate study in German literature. She lives in Cambridge and is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Waikato.
A word from Catherine
“I know, I know, I shouldn’t keep my phone by the bed, and I definitely shouldn’t check my emails in the middle of the night. Why disrupt my circadian rhythm simply to discover How to Reverse Tooth Decay With This One Weird Trick? Except every now and then a piece of truly exciting news arrives.”
“When I read – around 2 a.m. – that The Book of Guilt had been selected for the coveted BBC Radio 2 Book Club, I couldn’t get back to sleep. For writers living at the bottom of the world, gaining traction in the crowded international market is tough – so an opportunity to have my work showcased on the BBC – the BBC! – is a huge privilege and thrill. And it’s particularly sweet to know that my novel struck a chord with The Reading Agency’s wonderful librarians and expert readers. When I was a child growing up in small-town New Zealand, my mother took us to the local library every week. It was a place of wonder: the smell of the books, the edges of their pages softened by many eager hands, each cover a door to another planet, or an ancient castle, or an underwater kingdom. I can still call up the faces of the librarians, who – with their quiet superpowers – always knew exactly what story I would like to try next, and who fostered in me a lifelong passion for the written word.”
“I’m so grateful to be welcomed into the Club – thank you for your support!”
Get involved
To hear all the author interviews and other Book Club features, subscribe to the BBC Sounds podcast.
Planning to buy The Book of Guilt for your book club? Buy books from Bookshop.org and support The Reading Agency and local bookshops at no extra cost to you.
Want to make sure you get the latest news? Follow us on X, Facebook and Instagram.
