Delphi

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

'I am sick of the future. Up to here with the future. I don't want anything to do with it; don't want it near me.'

This is a story about now.

It's a story about a woman, and the family she has made for herself. It's about the dramas unfolding on our screens and behind the curtains of our homes in a world more turbulent than any of us could have imagined.

But it's also about before. And what comes next. It's about the flames that have burned for centuries beneath the cracks that are opening now. About the Ancient Greeks, who sacrificed and bargained with their Gods; about prophets and oracles, tarot cards and tea leaves, and how time and certainty and, sometimes, those we love can slip away.

It's about the questions we have always asked as we scroll and click and rage against our fates - and the answers that are coming for us whether we like them or not.

Extraordinary, electrifying, irreverent and heartbreaking, Delphi is a mesmerising story of our pasts, our presents and our futures, and how we keep on living in a world that is ever-more uncertain and absurd.

'Sexy, dark and dangerous, disturbed and disturbing in equal measure - I loved it' Anna Hope, author of Expectation

© Clare Pollard 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Critics Review

Inviting, stylish and candid ... Pollard's future, as a novelist, is very bright indeed
The i
For anyone looking for ways of thinking creatively and with love about art in an emergency and what just happened to us all I would recommend it, because despite the bleakness - you can't have realism without bleakness now - this is clever, warm and funny writing
Guardian
Funny and sharp ... Ripe with references and allusions ... Delphi is not just a novel about Covid; it's also about how a given historical moment such as the pandemic can connect us to the past and to the universal
Observer
This isn't the first - and most certainly won't be the last - pandemic novel, but it might be the most brilliant ... As a scribe of the present, Pollard, who is a successful poet and playwright, often recalls Ali Smith. But whereas Smith's formula has lately seemed rather stale, Pollard's novel is consistently inspired, and will keep you gripped all the way through to the heart-stopping finale
Daily Mail
If you're a fan of Greek mythology, you'll enjoy Delphi ... What I loved most about this quick read is the straight-talking, frustrated narrative voice, which feels so real and relatable ... There's something strangely comforting about seeing the messiness of lockdown life through fictional eyes
Stylist
Set in the dark days of the 2020 lockdowns, this moodily relatable narrative introduces a protagonist who, faced with a global pandemic and a marriage in crisis, looks to the ancient art of prophecy for consolation ... This is a powerful fable about life in an ever-more unpredictable world
Harper’s Bazaar, 15 brilliant debut novels to discover now
Delphi distils something elusive and upsetting about all the things we can't quite see or understand about the present moment, even as all we ever do is look. This feels impressive, part of what good fiction is meant to do
New York Times
Darkly funny ... This book does a superb job of providing perspective by connecting our present moment to ancient history in a way that's clever and surprising. For fans of Jenny Offill, Ottessa Moshfegh and Sally Rooney, here's another hot sad girl book to add to your list
Buzzfeed
There's a refreshing acerbity to the central character in Delphi ... Delphi is an angry, witty, at times despairing account of one woman's lockdown
Financial Times
Finally, a brilliantly funny and sad look into the heart of the pandemic lockdown... Pollard's debut novel, Delphi, is a greatest hits of COVID-era angst that manages to avoid cliches and tired complaints while being reassuringly familiar at the same time... This is the COVID novel I've been wanting to read - the COVID novel that feels brilliantly true to real life while elevating the monotonous drag of lockdown into something funny, sad and universal... [in] compact, concise language... Characters, settings and even whole scenes are drawn in quick, exquisite precision full of wit and pathos. Its intimacy reminded me of Sally Rooney and its subtle, sly humor of Miriam Toews' All My Puny Sorrows... a reassuring reflection in the darkness
San Francisco Chronicle

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