Description
SHORTLISTED FOR THE POLARI PRIZE 2019
Meet Jeremy, a hapless fifty-something who is scraping together a living in Paris writing soft-core pornography as ‘Nathalie Cray’.
When his all-but-estranged sister tells him their father is dying, he reluctantly travels back to his parental home in the English countryside. Confronted with a life he had always sought to escape, Jeremy begins an emotionally fraught journey into his family’s chequered past – back to the unexpected death of his mother in a provincial Greek hospital years earlier, and even further back, to the moment at which the Eldritch family fell apart.
A bold take on the queer coming-of-age story, Prodigal deftly reconsiders everything we think we know about the nature of trust, death, and what we do to each other in the name of love.
Reviews
‘Lambert is undoubtedly a very skilled writer and the reader is immediately engaged and drawn into this family’s world’ TripFiction
‘A visceral novel about a family suffering under the weight of secrets, lies, and things left unsaid’ Foreword Reviews
‘Lambert is a writer full of wit and poignance, especially in portraying the toxicity of White middle-class British society’ Kirkus Reviews
Praise for Charles Lambert
‘A writer who never ceases to surprise’ Jenny Offill, author of Weather
‘Expertly crafted’ Owen King, author of Double Feature
‘A seriously good writer’ Beryl Bainbridge
‘Charles Lambert could one day attain classic status’ Maggie Gee
‘More delicate than Dickens and stranger than Snicket,.. Sometimes heart-stopping, sometimes heart-warming, it is a provocative tale, ripe with intrigue. I loved every weird moment of it’ Nuala O’Connor, author of Miss Emily
Bonus Material
This is why you should read ‘Prodigal’