Spies in Canaan

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What to expect

Bloomsbury presents Spies in Canaan by David Park, read by William Hope.

A bold and unsettling parable about guilt, atonement and redemption from the winner of the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award

'It is seldom that one can say a book is perfect, but this is as close as I've seen in a very long time' SUNDAY INDEPENDENT
'A bold and unsettling parable about guilt, atonement and redemption' IRISH TIMES

Michael has travelled a long way from his boyhood under the endless skies of the Midwest. His retirement is peaceful, if solitary. But one day there is a visitation: a mysterious car on the seafront, and a package delivered. From its contents, Michael understands that he has been commissioned to undertake a final journey.

As Michael makes his way deep into a distant desert – a strange and liminal landscape that lies between hell and redemption – he undertakes another journey, into long-suppressed memories: of Vietnam and the dying days of war, and to face a final accounting for what was done.

Taut, atmospheric and moving, Spies in Canaan is a powerful elegy to the pain of love, the guilt of old age, and the grace of atonement.

‘Another compact marvel … This is a meditative novel that, while investing heavily in a patient build-up of atmosphere, never forgets the need to put a foot on the gas’ DAILY MAIL
‘David Park’s novels are always elegantly written’ INDEPENDENT
'Unflinching, courageous, wise, alert to the thrill and sorrow of violence ... Adds to David Park's status as a superb novelist' FRANK MCGUINNESS

Critics Review

A layered tale told in masterful style. A writer's writer, a purveyor of thoughtful, atmospheric fiction that is mature in observation, structure, pace, character- all the good things that bring a book to life
IRISH TIMES
An astonishing achievement
IRISH EXAMINER, Books of the Year 2022
Immerses the reader … a poignant retrospective narrative full of loss and insight
IRISH TIMES, Best summer reading
One of the most powerful and probing novels so far this year
FINANCIAL TIMES, Best summer reads of 2022
A short, sharp novel about memory, longing, regret and atonement
SUNDAY TIMES IRELAND
David Park’s novels are always elegantly written and I liked Spies in Canaan, a story about the redemption of a retired man whose past in Vietnam catches up with him
INDEPENDENT
Spies in Canaan is a masterful exploration of how guilt, memory, love and loss can resurface in old age. In just 200 pages, Park manages to conjure with a deft, economical precision all the complexity of human experience
FINANCIAL TIMES
Park has written a remarkable novel … A wise reader will take it once straight through, gripped by the narrative, then read it a second time slowly, savouring the art and intelligence with which it has been made
ALLAN MASSIE
Virtuosic ... A gripping, poignant story of loss and betrayal, of youthful ignorance and a lifetime's worth of regret, of the unreliability of memory when recounting the violence of war, set against the vital importance of having such testimony recorded for the ages
IRISH TIMES
Set in the last months of the Vietnam War and in contemporary America, David Park's wonderfully complex novel is the work of a master craftsman. A wise reader will take it once straight through, gripped by the narrative, then read it a second time slowly, savouring its complexity, savouring the art and intelligence with which it has been made
SCOTSMAN
With its superbly rich and descriptive language- a tornado, the desert and the teeming-with-life streets of Saigon all come alive under his pen and razor sharp dialogue. Near perfect
HOT PRESS
David Park transplants his great imagination from the fight at home to the shifting, scarifying battlegrounds of Asia in his new novel. How well he can create these landscapes and these people battling on both sides, fraught with suspicion, committing acts of treachery and redemption, ending as all wars must end with no peace, no peace at all. Unflinching, courageous, wise, alert to the thrill and sorrow of violence, Spies In Canaan adds to David Park's status as a superb novelist
FRANK MCGUINNESS
Another compact marvel … electrifying … This is a meditative novel that, while investing heavily in a patient build-up of atmosphere, never forgets the need to put a foot on the gas
DAILY MAIL
The Belfast author has steadily built a reputation as one of the finest writers on this island. In his tenth novel, he explores themes of guilt, atonement and redemption through the story of Michael, a Vietnam vet who faces his past on a journey into the desert
IRISH EXAMINER
Spies in Canaan by David Park … Is an unsettling parable about guilt, atonement and redemption set in the US
IRISH TIMES, BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2022
The tenth novel from the Co Down author follows retiree Michael on one last journey into a distant desert, and his inner journey into long-suppressed memories of the Vietnam War
IRISH INDEPENDENT
Praise for David Park: Delicate, beautifully written
DAVID NICHOLLS
Breathtaking, brave, exhilarating … Every sentence in Parks’s book is felt. The author has weighed up each word and considered every image, electing only those that carry sufficient freight to bear the reader to his intended destination
GUARDIAN
Wrings the heart
BERNARD MACLAVERTY
The tenth novel from the Co Down author follows retiree Michael on one last journey into a distant desert, and his inner journey into long-suppressed memories of the Vietnam War
IRISH INDEPENDENT, BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2022
A mighty book ... An eruption of love and sorrow, overwhelmingly compassionate and wise, hearing the heart break and maybe even heal, bearing the deepest testimony to the love, unending love
FRANK MCGUINESS
Extraordinary, raw and moving a chronicle of pain and powerlessness as could be written
LISA MCINERNEY
Beautiful, intensely human
IRISH TIMES, BOOKS OF THE YEAR
Tense, thrilling, strange and profoundly moving ... There isn’t a wasted syllable in this short, beautiful book
IRISH TIMES
Park appears to write effortlessly, with one foot planted firmly in the canon of traditional Irish lyricism and another flirting with modern parlance … His emotional intelligence is remarkable
DAILY MAIL
The Belfast Turgenev ... One of the truest observers of life
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