Showing results by publisher "Fourth Estate" in Literary Fiction

Everyone remembers what it’s like to be 17. The conversations you have; the ideas that burst on you; the kiss that transforms you. And then you grow up, and make a deal with adulthood. A Small Revolution in Germany is about that rapturous moment when ideas, and ideals, and passion crash over one boy’s head. And what happens in the decades afterwards? When you see the overwhelming truth when you are 17, why should you ever abandon that truth?

The narrator of The Pages is not a human but a book: a first edition of Joseph Roth’s masterpiece Rebellion, rescued from a Nazi book-burning in 1933. In recounting its history, it tells a multitude of stories: of Andreas, the character who lives in its pages; of its current owner, a woman whose discovery of a hand-drawn map in the book begins a thrilling mystery; and of Roth himself, a writer on the run. Together, they form a compelling story about art, nationalism, the weight of history, and the strange connections between us.

Ailey Pearl Garfield grows up between the City in the north and summers spent in her mother’s small hometown of Chicasetta, Georgia. From an early age, she finds herself in a battle for belonging that’s made all the more difficult by a hurt in her past, as well as the whispers of women—her mother, Belle, her sister, Lydia, and a maternal line reaching back two centuries—that urge Ailey to succeed in their stead.

Set in 1950s America at a time when people stopped looking west and started looking up: a breathtakingly beautiful debut novel of revolution, chance and the gambles we take with the human heart. Muriel, newly married and newly orphaned, works as a waitress in a San Diego diner. As she pours coffee and empties ashtrays, she eavesdrops on her customers, the ex-jockeys and trainers of the Del Mar racetrack. When she begins, secretly, to bet on the horses and, shockingly, to win, she feels strangely unready to share her good luck and its origins with her husband, Lee.

When his grandfather dies, a boy named Jay travels south with his family to the property he left them, a once flourishing farm that has fallen into disrepair. The trees are diseased, the fields parched from months of drought. Still, Jay’s father, Jack, sends him out to work the land, or whatever land is left. Over the course of these hot, dense days, Jay finds himself drawn to Chuan, the local son of the farm’s manager, different from him in every way except for one.

Baby is a dancer at a strip club and other than that she’s feeling a little lost. It seems that only Dino, her sweet, cross-dressing, drug-dealing ex-boyfriend can keep her afloat. So, when Dino disappears without so much as a kiss goodbye, she plunges headfirst into San Francisco’s shady erotic underground to find him. Baby searches through dive bars and old haunts, at the club and at the sex dungeon where she has a part-time dominatrix gig.

1979. Topper and Sanya flee to Miami as political violence consumes their native Kingston. But they soon learn that the welcome in America will be far from warm. Trelawny, their youngest son, comes of age in a society which regards him with suspicion, greeting him with the puzzled question ‘What are you?’ Their eldest son Delano’s longing for a better future for his own children is equalled only by his recklessness in trying to secure it. As both brothers navigate the obstacles littered in their path they find themselves increasingly pitted against one another.

When 72-year-old Cloris Waldrip finds herself lost and alone in the unforgiving wilderness of the Montana mountains, it seems her chances of ever getting home to Texas are slim. Debra Lewis, a park ranger who is drinking her way out of the aftermath of a messy divorce, is the only one who believes the old lady may still be alive. Suspenseful, wry and gorgeously written, it is the inspiring account of two unforgettable characters whose heroism reminds us that survival is only the beginning.

A tense, provocative and nuanced novel about a rape accusation in an idyllic commune.

Sylvie is only happy when she is at therapy. This is because Sylvie is in love with her therapist. She wants to kiss her and roll around on the floor with her. She thinks about her every second they’re not together (roughly 167 hours and 10 minutes per week). She’s aware she has an obsession, but whether it is – as her therapist suggests – a case of extreme ‘erotic transference’, or a lost person’s need to connect, Sylvie isn’t sure.

The debut novel from Irish playwright, actor, and poet, Emmet Kirwan.

When 72-year-old Cloris Waldrip finds herself lost and alone in the unforgiving wilderness of the Montana mountains, with only a Bible, a sturdy pair of boots and a couple of candies to keep her alive, it seems her chances of ever getting home to Texas are slim. Debra Lewis, a park ranger who is drinking her way out of the aftermath of a messy divorce, is the only one who believes the old lady may still be alive. Galvanised by her newfound mission to find her, Lewis leads a motley group of rescuers to follow the trail of clues that Cloris has left behind.

Jonathan Abernathy is a loser. Unemployed, behind on his student loan payments and a self-declared failure, the only thing Abernathy has in abundance is debt. When a government loan forgiveness programme offers Abernathy a job he can literally do in his sleep, he thinks he’s found his big break. He finds himself auditing the dreams of white-collar workers, flagging their anxieties for removal so they'll be more productive. If Abernathy can appear to be competent at this new job, might he have a chance at a new life?