POOR GHOST!

Place, belonging, failure, ambition this beguilingly readable novel has interesting, fresh things to say on them all Wendy Erskine, author of The Benefactors A clear-eyed, deadpan-funny novel about the present Lauren Oyler, author of Fake Accounts A moving meditation on inheritance and home Esquire Acidly funny TLS Luca is back in Manchester, returning from Harvard with little more than a broken heart and a failed academic career. Desperate for money and still clinging to his literary dreams, he finds work as a ghost writer. Andy, a local man with a colourful history, wants Luca to write his story. But the assignment is a personal one Andy has the same condition Luca s dad suffered from, before he took his own life. Now, balancing his artistic ambitions with Andy s demands, Luca must confront the past he thought he d escaped, and the failures that have led him back home. Gabriel Flynn s work, rich with insight and wit, makes the world newly vivid Claire Messud, author of This Strange Eventful History A brilliantly simple idea and compellingly complicated characters Aidan Cottrell-Boyce, author of The End of Nightwork