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Beginning Middle End
- Author
- Valeria Luiselli
- Publisher
- HarperCollins Publishers
- Publish Date
- 28 July 2026
- Run Time
- 7 hours 39 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
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What to expect
LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION 2026
‘Mind-expanding and heart-expanding; A summer book for life’ ALI SMITH
‘An instant classic’ SERVICE95
‘A stunning shape-shifting marvel’ MAX PORTER
From the award-winning author of Lost Children Archive, Valeria Luiselli, comes a wondrous new novel about family, love and starting over.
All I had to do, or so I thought, was to answer a simple question: How do I reinvent it, the story, our lives?
A mother and a daughter take off on a road trip after the collapse of a marriage. Their journey begins in Sicily during a summer of rapidly-changing winds, volcanic rumbles and sudden tempests. How do you begin again, the mother wonders, if you got the beginning wrong? The trip soon becomes a quest for origins – not just through their family history, but also further back to a mythical and even geological past.
With her daughter leaving childhood behind and her mother beginning to show signs of dementia, the narrator finds herself at a crossroads. She must now ask herself: How do we situate ourselves deeply in the world while accepting our transience in it? How are a family's memories made and what happens when they disappear?
A road novel, a mother-daughter story, a radical portrait of starting over, in all its forms, Beginning Middle End offers an exhilarating testament to the power of the stories and the loves we hold most dear.
A hottest book of the summer as seen in New York Times, Guardian, Vogue, Elle, AnOther, New Yorker, Glossary, Town & Country and more.
‘What sets Valeria Luiselli’s new novel apart is its clarity, its immediacy, its vividness’ COLM TÓIBÍN, author of Long Island
‘An affecting novel for anyone … seeking their own new beginning’ FINANCIAL TIMES
‘A beautiful, maybe perfect novel’ TOMMY ORANGE, author of Wandering Stars
‘Dazzles on every page’ KATIE KITAMURA, author of Audition
‘Astonishing … a lightning bolt of a book’ DOIREANN NÍ GHRÍOFA, author of Said the Dead
‘Beautiful, funny and tender … I loved it’ EMMA HEALY, author of Sweat
‘Among the best books to read on holiday … beautiful’ THE GLOSSARY
‘The kind of novel you wish would never come to an end’ SPECTATOR
‘One of the country's most gifted novelists’ LA TIMES
‘Rich, lyrical and moving’ ANOTHER
What readers are saying ★ ★ ★ ★ ★:
‘Just about as perfect as fiction comes’
‘Intoxicating … the perfect summer read for someone looking for a book to get lost in’
‘Absolutely magnificent’
‘Literary fiction at its finest’
Critics Review
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‘Mind-expanding and heart-expanding; a summer book for life’ Ali Smith, author of Gliff
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‘What sets Valeria Luiselli’s new novel apart is its clarity, its immediacy, its vividness’ Colm Tóibín, author of The News from Dublin
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‘Already being hailed as one of the summer’s hottest reads … Intimate, funny and quietly profound’ Service95
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‘A stunning shape-shifting marvel of mother daughter myth-making in a time of crisis’ Max Porter, author of Shy
See more reviews See fewer reviews
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‘A lightning bolt of a book, every page blazes electric’ Doireann Ní Ghríofa, author of Said the Dead
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‘Valeria Luiselli is extravagantly gifted’ Katie Kitamura, author of Audition
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‘A rare, aching work of deep thought and pure feeling. I was utterly captivated’ Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of Almost Life
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‘A visionary portrait of three generations of women, as well as the times in which we find ourselves … deft and beguiling’ Spectator
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‘Bewitching … an affecting novel for anyone midway through their life or seeking their own new beginning’ Financial Times
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‘A mother and daughter’s odyssey … charts the narrator’s efforts to corral life into a narrative’ Guardian
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‘Intricate, clever, constantly surprising’ Scotsman
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‘Ambitious, richly suggestive and current in its consideration of migration and climate crisis’ Daily Mail
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‘Luiselli’s writing is rich, lyrical and moving … [an] abundant story’ AnOther
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‘Among the best books to read on holiday … her most personal and formally exhilarating work yet’ The Glossary
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‘Original, enjoyable and thoughtful, a mesmerising take on the current climate catastrophe’ TLS
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‘Beautiful, funny and tender … made me think of Sebald and Deborah Levy … I loved it’ Emma Healey, author of Elizabeth is Missing
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‘A profound meditation on parenthood and the nature of change’ Tommy Orange, author of Wandering Stars
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‘An instant classic … Luiselli is at her bravest and most sincere’ Samanta Schweblin, author of Fever Dream
User Reviews
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Details
- Author
- Valeria Luiselli
- Narrator
- Valeria Luiselli, Maia Enrigue Luiselli, Marta López Astrain
- Duration
- 7 hours 39 minutes
- Release Date
- 28 July 2026
- ISBN
- 9780008804831
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- HarperCollins Publishers
- Genre
- Family life fiction / Stories about family, Narrative theme: journeys and voyages, Narrative theme: sense of place
Synopsis
LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION 2026 ‘Mind-expanding and heart-expanding; A summer book for life’ ALI SMITH ‘An instant classic’ SERVICE95 ‘A stunning shape-shifting marvel’ MAX PORTER From the award-winning author of Lost Children Archive, Valeria Luiselli, comes a wondrous new novel about family, love and starting over. All I had to do, or so I thought, was to answer a simple question: How do I reinvent it, the story, our lives? A mother and a daughter take off on a road trip after the collapse of a marriage. Their journey begins in Sicily during a summer of rapidly-changing winds, volcanic rumbles and sudden tempests. How do you begin again, the mother wonders, if you got the beginning wrong? The trip soon becomes a quest for origins – not just through their family history, but also further back to a mythical and even geological past. With her daughter leaving childhood behind and her mother beginning to show signs of dementia, the narrator finds herself at a crossroads. She must now ask herself: How do we situate ourselves deeply in the world while accepting our transience in it? How are a family's memories made and what happens when they disappear? A road novel, a mother-daughter story, a radical portrait of starting over, in all its forms, Beginning Middle End offers an exhilarating testament to the power of the stories and the loves we hold most dear. A hottest book of the summer as seen in New York Times, Guardian, Vogue, Elle, AnOther, New Yorker, Glossary, Town & Country and more. ‘What sets Valeria Luiselli’s new novel apart is its clarity, its immediacy, its vividness’ COLM TÓIBÍN, author of Long Island ‘An affecting novel for anyone … seeking their own new beginning’ FINANCIAL TIMES ‘A beautiful, maybe perfect novel’ TOMMY ORANGE, author of Wandering Stars ‘Dazzles on every page’ KATIE KITAMURA, author of Audition ‘Astonishing … a lightning bolt of a book’ DOIREANN NÍ GHRÍOFA, author of Said the Dead ‘Beautiful, funny and tender … I loved it’ EMMA HEALY, author of Sweat ‘Among the best books to read on holiday … beautiful’ THE GLOSSARY ‘The kind of novel you wish would never come to an end’ SPECTATOR ‘One of the country's most gifted novelists’ LA TIMES ‘Rich, lyrical and moving’ ANOTHER What readers are saying ★ ★ ★ ★ ★: ‘Just about as perfect as fiction comes’ ‘Intoxicating … the perfect summer read for someone looking for a book to get lost in’ ‘Absolutely magnificent’ ‘Literary fiction at its finest’
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