The Book of Guilt

In a sinisterly skewed version of England in 1979, thirteen-year-old triplets Vincent, Lawrence and William are the last remaining residents of a New Forest home, part of the government’s Sycamore Scheme. Each day the boys must take medicine to protect themselves from a mysterious illness to which many of their friends have succumbed. Children who survive are allowed to move to the Big House in Margate, a destination of mythical proportions, desired by every Sycamore child. Meanwhile, in Exeter, Nancy lives a secluded life with her parents, who never let her leave the house. As the government looks to shut down the Sycamore homes and place their residents into the community, the triplets’ lives begin to intersect with Nancy’s, culminating in revelations that will rock the children to the core. 

Gradually surrendering its dark secrets, The Book of Guilt is a spellbinding novel from one of our greatest storytellers: a profoundly unnerving exploration of belonging in a world where some lives are valued less than others. 

Praise for Catherine Chidgey

‘Chidgey again displays her prodigious talent for psychological suspense and minutely evoking past eras . . . Faultless.’ —The Guardian

‘Chidgey is a find.’ —Times Literary Supplement

‘A lingering, haunting book, which belongs on the shelf with We Have Always Lived in the Castle or My Brilliant Friend – a landmark in the small but potent canon of contemporary novels about unusual girls reckoning with themselves and the world around them.’ —The New York Times

Catherine Chidgey is the author of In a Fishbone Church (1998), Golden Deeds (2000), The Transformation (2003), The Wish Child (2016), the 'found novel' The Beat of the Pendulum (2017), Remote Sympathy (2020), The Axeman’s Carnival (2022) and Pet (2023). Her novels have been published to international acclaim and have been shortlisted and won numerous prizes including, the Women’s Prize and, twice, the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction. She lives in Ngāruawāhia and lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Waikato.