Having Spent Life Seeking

*Dua Lipa’s Service95 Book Club Pick for June 2026*

‘Amazing, it really moved me… Not something I’ve encountered in British literary fiction before’ SHON FAYE
‘If books can still change the world, this one most likely will’ COLUM MCCANN
‘A scorching story of love, change, homecoming and forgiveness’ DAWN FRENCH

Rothko Taylor has washed up with the tide, back in their hometown, Edgecliff. Fifteen years since they left it behind.

The past is accelerating towards them: the skateboard kids on the high street that remind them of their teenage years, the splintered benches looking out to sea, where their mum Meg clutched her cans. The nice bit of town, where their dad Ezra tried and failed to build a happy home. And Dionne’s block. Beautiful, extraordinary Dionne, the only person who had ever looked at them and seen what was there.

Back then, overwhelmed and full of fear, they sank beneath the surface into chaos. But they made it out alive. And this time, Rothko is determined that things will be different.

A decade since Kae Tempest’s last novel, Having Spent Life Seeking is about family and forgiveness; redemption and atonement; desire and abandon; selfhood and community. This book is about things we seek when we are hiding, and what finds us, if we can let ourselves be seen.

‘A wonderful, moving and enlightening state-of-Britain novel’ IRVINE WELSH

‘A master-craftsman of deep feeling and linguistic intimacy’ MAX PORTER

‘Kae Tempest at his finest’ ANTHONY SHAPLAND

‘Unboundedly beautiful’ MICHAEL PEDERSEN