What Was Lost: Winner of the Costa First Novel Award
CHOSEN BY GAIL HONEYMAN ON BBC RADIO 4 A GOOD READ 'Sad, funny and full of charm - a delight' Gail Honeyman, author of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE AND THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION SHORTLISTED FOR THE GUARDIAN FIRST BOOK AWARD A lost little girl with her notebook and toy monkey appears on the CCTV screens of the Green Oaks shopping centre, evoking memories of junior detective Kate Meaney, missing for 20 years. Kurt, a security guard with a sleep disorder, and Lisa, a disenchanted deputy manager at Your Music, follow her through the centre's endless corridors - welcome relief from the tedium of their lives. But as this after-hours friendship grows in intensity, it brings new loss and new longing to light.
Catherine O'Flynn was born in Birmingham in 1970, where she grew up in and around her parents' sweet shop as the youngest child of a large family. She has been a teacher, web editor, mystery customer and postwoman. Her first novel draws on her experience of working in record stores - and of growing up as a child intrigued by clues, suspects and methods of detection.
Author: Catherine O'Flynn
Format: Paperback, 256 pages, 130mm x 198mm, 183 g
Published: 2011, Profile Books Ltd, United Kingdom
Genre: General & Literary Fiction
CHOSEN BY GAIL HONEYMAN ON BBC RADIO 4 A GOOD READ 'Sad, funny and full of charm - a delight' Gail Honeyman, author of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE AND THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION SHORTLISTED FOR THE GUARDIAN FIRST BOOK AWARD A lost little girl with her notebook and toy monkey appears on the CCTV screens of the Green Oaks shopping centre, evoking memories of junior detective Kate Meaney, missing for 20 years. Kurt, a security guard with a sleep disorder, and Lisa, a disenchanted deputy manager at Your Music, follow her through the centre's endless corridors - welcome relief from the tedium of their lives. But as this after-hours friendship grows in intensity, it brings new loss and new longing to light.
Catherine O'Flynn was born in Birmingham in 1970, where she grew up in and around her parents' sweet shop as the youngest child of a large family. She has been a teacher, web editor, mystery customer and postwoman. Her first novel draws on her experience of working in record stores - and of growing up as a child intrigued by clues, suspects and methods of detection.