The Spider Truces
Buy Now
Tom Connolly’s debut novel was a Financial Times Book of the Year, shortlisted for the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Award, and longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize.
DESCRIPTION
Ellis is obsessed by the spiders that inhabit the crumbling house where he lives with his dad, his older sister and great aunt Mafi – and also by a need to find out more about his mother, whose death overshadows the family’s otherwise happy existence. He is a quirky soul; awkward and sensitive, out of place most of the time, funny, and with an often embarrassing habit of speaking his thoughts aloud, whatever the company.
From early attempts at relationships, to unskilled jobs, flatshares and drug-addled nights on the beach, Ellis muddles his way towards adulthood. What endures is the strength of his bond with his dad and the relationship with his intrepid sister, Chrissie. But so too does the heartache of Ellis’ desire to know something – anything – about his mother. Meanwhile his dad, Denny, an ex-Merchant Navy man, bottles up his grief at the loss of his wife, refusing to talk about her.
Against the vividly described background of 1980s rural Kent, this moving portrait of a father-son relationship shifts effortlessly between evoking utterly convincingly the terrors and joys of adolescence and the complicated pleasure and pain of becoming an adult.
WHAT READERS SAY
“A beautiful book about whether or not you can protect someone from the bad things in life – and lays bare the fact that, in the end, in doing so you are preventing them from living life itself. A very close-to-home novel that’s poignantly written.” – Booker Prize
“A beautiful debut about a son trying to break free from his father.” – Financial Times
“Lyrical, warm and moving, this impressive debut is reminiscent of Laurie Lee.” – Meera Syal
“A funny, moving and quirky coming-of-age story. Hugely enjoyable.” – Deborah Moggach
“A very fine, funny and moving read.” – David Baddiel
“A remote corner of Kent is the background to Connolly’s magical coming-of-age novel… a fierce, humane and hazily poetic work.” – Guardian
“The Spider Truces is one of those wonderful novels that captures within its pages something of the essence of life as lived.” Book Rabbit
The Spider Truces
Buy Now
Tom Connolly’s debut novel was a Financial Times Book of the Year, shortlisted for the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Award, and longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize.
DESCRIPTION
Ellis is obsessed by the spiders that inhabit the crumbling house where he lives with his dad, his older sister and great aunt Mafi – and also by a need to find out more about his mother, whose death overshadows the family’s otherwise happy existence. He is a quirky soul; awkward and sensitive, out of place most of the time, funny, and with an often embarrassing habit of speaking his thoughts aloud, whatever the company.
From early attempts at relationships, to unskilled jobs, flatshares and drug-addled nights on the beach, Ellis muddles his way towards adulthood. What endures is the strength of his bond with his dad and the relationship with his intrepid sister, Chrissie. But so too does the heartache of Ellis’ desire to know something – anything – about his mother. Meanwhile his dad, Denny, an ex-Merchant Navy man, bottles up his grief at the loss of his wife, refusing to talk about her.
Against the vividly described background of 1980s rural Kent, this moving portrait of a father-son relationship shifts effortlessly between evoking utterly convincingly the terrors and joys of adolescence and the complicated pleasure and pain of becoming an adult.
WHAT READERS SAY
“A beautiful book about whether or not you can protect someone from the bad things in life – and lays bare the fact that, in the end, in doing so you are preventing them from living life itself. A very close-to-home novel that’s poignantly written.” – Booker Prize
“A beautiful debut about a son trying to break free from his father.” – Financial Times
“Lyrical, warm and moving, this impressive debut is reminiscent of Laurie Lee.” – Meera Syal
“A funny, moving and quirky coming-of-age story. Hugely enjoyable.” – Deborah Moggach
“A very fine, funny and moving read.” – David Baddiel
“A remote corner of Kent is the background to Connolly’s magical coming-of-age novel… a fierce, humane and hazily poetic work.” – Guardian
“The Spider Truces is one of those wonderful novels that captures within its pages something of the essence of life as lived.” Book Rabbit
LITERARY AGENT
For literary enquiries contact Becky Thomas at The Lewinsohn Literary Agency
FILM & TV AGENT
For film and tv enquiries contact Rochelle Stevens at Rochelle Stevens & Co.