Jenni Fagan with Val McDermid for The Delusions
Monday 16th March, 7pm
Ps and Gs Church, 46 York Place, EH1 3HP
6.30pm
7pm
'Brilliant, original, daring, a 1984 for the afterlife and a fabulous satire. It really makes you think about what it means to be human.'
- Irvine Welsh
We are beyond excited to welcome Jenni Fagan back to the bookshop for the launch of her latest novel, The Delusions. Jenni is a firm favourite amongst our booksellers, who have been pressing her work into the hands of browsers since we first opened. We cannot wait and we hope to see you there!
The event will be chaired by the queen of crime herself, Val McDermid
Edi is facing a disciplinary since her 'incident' at work. Forty-seven years in Admin processing the newly dead is not how she foresaw eternity.
In Arrivals, the newly dead must take the stages in order: first, extract delusion; second, answer HR's questionnaire truthfully. Yet who among them can truly face who they are? Who may never pass at all? As leaderboard numbers begin to rise at unprecedented rates, rumours begin to fly. Humans are about to become a banned race. The earth is going to be repossessed
As chaos descends, Edi hopes this might finally be the moment she has waited for, so she might see her son again who she was forced to leave on Earth when she died. Edi wants to be the one waiting for him, even if HR protocols forbid it. Looking out at the millions of newly dead arriving, Edi has one question - what might any of us truly be willing to do for those we love at the doors of eternity?
Against a spectacular backdrop of stars, constellations and comets, a mass extinction event begins to unfurl watched by the entire universe as Processing, the largest soul terminus in existence, decides it is now time to take matters wholly back into its own hands. With reflections on love, defiance and light, The Delusions is a story of profound human connection, on an unprecedented scale.
Jenni Fagan was born in Scotland. She won the Gordon Burn Prize for her memoir, Ootlin, which was also longlisted for the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction. Her debut novel, The Panopticon, saw her selected as a Granta Best Young British Novelist, and her second novel, The Sunlight Pilgrims, gained her Scottish Author of the Year. Jenni has been listed for the Encore Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prizes, the Desmond Elliott Prize, the Sunday Times Short Story Award, and the Pushcart Prize. She is a Doctor of Philosophy, a member of Liberty, and a Royal Society of Literature Fellow. She lives in Edinburgh with her son.
Val McDermid has sold over 19 million copies of her novels to date worldwide, her work has been translated into more than forty languages and adapted for radio, theatre and television. Her contribution has been recognised with awards including the CWA Gold Dagger, the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger, the Grand Prix des Romans D'Aventure, the Lambda Literary Foundation Pioneer Award, the LA Times Book of the Year Award, the Stonewall Writer of the Year, the DIVA Literary Prize for Crime and the Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction award at the Theakston's Old Peculiar Harrogate Crime Festival. Uniquely, she has been shortlisted in five different categories in the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Awards.