KATHRYN HEYMAN
Circle of Wonders
‘Wondrous. Kathryn Heyman has mined the depths of human frailty and hit a seam of gold. Beautifully written, full of life and love, acceptance and forgiveness. I couldn’t put it down.’
– Pip Williams, author of The Dictionary of Lost Words
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Set over one heightened lunar month, this is the story of four women. It is a story of death, and a story of life.
It is the story of Roni, dying of breast cancer, and of her mother, Sylvie, lying waiting for her own death in the public hospital on the other side of the mountain ridge that divides them. It is also the story of Roni’s daughter, Belle, recently returned from a rehab centre after years of addiction. And there is Anna, Roni’s Oxbridge-educated, shining star of a sister. She has returned to Australia from London, to be with her mother and her sister as they lie dying. For each of them, this month will change everything; it will teach them how to live.
‘Circle of Wonders is a novel of deep courage and beauty, a serious act of witness to friendship, complexity, and the everyday wonders that sustain us. Kathryn Heyman confronts mortality and coercion without flinching, yet insists on the small acts of love and attention that make life endurable. In an age scarred by lies and posturing masculinity, this important novel offers the radical reminder that honesty, tenderness, and solidarity are our strongest forms of resistance. A must-read for all who know the power of literature to remind us what we fight for.’
– Chris Cleave, Everyone Brave is Forgiven
‘A beautifully observed, funny and tender novel about letting love in, and letting love go.’
– Anna Funder, Wifedom
‘Funny and deeply moving, Circle of Wonders reveals Kathryn Heyman at her most masterful, drawing the reader into a world of unbearable tenderness and unspoken hurt. Structured around Roni’s dying days, the novel examines how women hold grief in the body, how shame and resentments are inherited like heirlooms, and how practical love—bedpans, broth, painted cardboard coffins—can become sacred. With incredible grace, the novel refuses simple redemption in favour of a more profound recognition: that love, when chosen in spite of everything, is its own kind of wonder.’
– Ross Grayson Bell, producer of Fight Club
‘It is breathtaking, ruthless and healing. Beautiful and profoundly moving and riveting. I think this will be a very important book. And enormously meaningful to many people. What a gift.’
– Jaclyn Moriarty, Gravity is the Thing
‘A precious jewellery box of language, bravely capturing the imperfection of being human and probing the mysteries of what matters most – this courageous novel glitters with wonder itself.’
– Suzie Miller, Prima Facie
Kathryn Heyman’s seventh novel, Circle of Wonders, is published by HarperCollins.