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Sight

Wellcome Trust Book Prize, 2019

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Digital (deliver electronic) / ISBN-13: 9781473652385

Price: £8.99

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2018

LONGLISTED FOR THE WELLCOME BOOK PRIZE 2019

‘A stunning debut‘ Guardian

In Jessie Greengrass’ superb debut novel, our unnamed narrator recounts her progress to motherhood, while remembering the death of her own mother ten years before, and the childhood summers she spent with her psychoanalyst grandmother.

Woven among these personal recollections are significant events in medical history: Wilhelm Röntgen’s discovery of the X-ray; Sigmund Freud’s development of psychoanalysis and the work that he did with his daughter, Anna; and the origins of modern surgery and the anatomy of pregnant bodies.

Sight is a novel about being a parent and a child: what it is like to bring a person in to the world, and what it is to let one go. Exquisitely written and fiercely intelligent, it is an incisive exploration of how we see others, and how we might know ourselves.

Reviews

A terrific writer . . . it's hard not to be blown away by the sheer brilliance of the work and her ability as a wordsmith
Storgy
This book blew me away. It is beautiful and devastating and perfectly formed
Daisy Johnson
This singularly introspective book is a stimulating read . . . a spectacularly written novel
Book Riot
One of the finest English novels I've read... It is exquisitely well-assembled and every page has a line of pure underline-for-later brilliance
Max Porter
Written in gorgeous, crystalline prose, Sight is a moving exploration of perception and wonder
Dazed
Beautiful to read . . . wise and insightful . . . completely compelling
Monocle
Cerebral and tender, Greengrass' voice is smart and original
Elle
Remarkable and affecting
Literary Review
The poise, intelligence and serious intent of Sight will be lauded, and rightly so. I would not be surprised to see it on heavyweight prize lists
Sunday Times
A self-consciously good writer
The Times
A masterly tale . . . [an] outstanding first novel
TLS
A stunning debut
Guardian
The author of an award-winning short story collection, An Account of the Decline of the Great Auk, According to One Who Saw It, Greengrass adapts to the novel format with enviable flexibility . . . Greengrass writes stunningly about the experience of pregnancy and motherhood
Guardian
Jessie Greengrass's first book . . . won plaudits for its incisive, compelling prose. Greengrass brings the same power to her debut novel, Sight
Radio Times
An exceptionally accomplished debut
Observer
As a meditation on parenthood, grief and the awareness that knowledge can be both wondrous and terrifying, Sight is an exceptionally accomplished debut
Observer
Greengrass's fiercely cerebral despatch from one of life's most extraordinary rites of passage impresses linguistically, intellectually and emotionally
Mail on Sunday
This is a first novel - an original one by a writer who clearly has considerable gifts and a serious, nuanced approach to individual psychology and intellectual history
Financial Times
Fascinating . . . Greengrass is a master of subtlety . . . [it is] wonderful in terms of its execution, a very self-contained and meticulously planned tale that is very effective and moving
Wormhole
A slow burning, beautifully written debut . . . accomplished and melancholic
Irish Times
Exceptional . . . The prose is unsentimental, measured, breathtaking in its elegance . . . remarkably moving
The Spectator
An exceptional debut novel . . . The prose is unsentimental, measured, breathtaking in its elegance, but never precious or mannered. Paragraphs over several pages, page-long sentences, move with extraordinary cadence towards devastatingly bathetic or utterly heartbreaking conclusions . . . And the book is also about, in part, the necessity of that separation; the ongoing and ever-unfinished coming into being of a person. It brings all these things together, loosely and delicately, in a way that is unexpectedly and remarkably moving
The Spectator
A slight and wondrous tale
New Statesman
Precise and moving . . . The pages on the mother's decline are a masterclass in wrenching, pitiless truth . . . the potted stories of Röntgen, Freud and Hunter form a fluid, richly associative historic narrative of investigation into the body and the mind, about seeking constantly to expand the borders of what we can see
Daily Telegraph ****
There are echoes of WG Sebald and Rachel Cusk in this thoughtful, digressive style that swirls together the historical and the personal, but Greengrass's questing intellect and elegant prose are all her own
Guardian, 50 Books to Read Now
An insightful novel that explores relatable issues and fascinating themes, but also stands out as a work of art
The Lady
Greengrass reminds me of Virginia Woolf - in her intelligence and scope of interest, and in her evocative ability to capture a single consciousness, all while seemingly re-inventing the novel form. Sight is a beautiful debut, and Greengrass is an important new voice in fiction
Jamie Quatro, author of Fire Sermon
A very intriguing, challenging novel . . . very moving
Toby Lichtig
I honestly can't remember the last time I read a novel so near to perfection, so full of grace. With every page I was in awe of the author's sense of pace, her attention to nuance, the acuity of feeling and clarity of reflection
Sara Baume
Greengrass is a perceptive and deep observer of human nature, one who finds incredibly beautiful and realistic ways to express the everyday life in words. The novel is a goldmine of quote-worthy passages, the sort of deep pondering you find as asides in George Eliot
Helsinki Book Review
Stands out for its seriousness, and its willingness to explore universal subjects
i
A philosophical quest investigating what lies beneath our skins, exploring the transformative impact, physically and intellectually, of pregnancy
Patricia Nichol
A moving and contemplative account of a woman's life as she grieves for a mother lost at the cusp of adulthood, and her journey towards becoming a wife and mother herself
Optima
If you're only going to read one book this summer make it Jessie Greengrass's Sight . . . easily my book of the year so far. The balance of Greengrass's sentences combined with the unexpected and perfectly chosen words is reminiscent of the great W. G. Sebald
Boundless
A stunning novel about what we can know of our bodies, ourselves, and each other
Lauren Elkin
[Greengrass's] intelligence and honesty continue to dazzle, and the novel as a whole exudes a strange consoling power . . . it is precisely her obsessive ruminations, and how they find expression in controlled, stylish prose, that make the book so exciting
New Yorker
Sight - with its cascading sentences and startling insights - is hard to put down
Atlantic
Greengrass writes stunningly about the experience of pregnancy and motherhood
Guardian