The Variations

Selda Heddle, a famously reclusive composer, is found dead in a snowy field near her Cornish home. She was educated at Agnes's Hospice for Acoustically Gifted Children, which for centuries has offered its young wards a grounding in the gift - an inherited ability to tune into the voices and sounds of the past. When she dies, Selda's gift passes down to her grandson Wolf, who must make sense of her legacy, and learn to live with the newly unleashed voices in his head. Ambitious and exhilarating, The Variations is a novel of startling originality about music and the difficulty - or impossibility - of living with the past.

'A gorgeous novel... A livid and visionary brotherly love story set among our ruins. I loved it.' - Max Porter, author of Shy (praise for Arkady)

'I haven't been able to stop thinking about [Arkady] - such a tender, hopeful tale of brotherhood and belonging, set against vividly imagined urban topographies. I haven't read anything like it in ages.' - Sophie Mackintosh, author of The Water Cure (praise for Arkady)

'Thick with smoky atmosphere and beautifully controlled - this is a vivid and very fine debut.' - Kevin Barry, author of Nightboat to Tangier (praise for Arkady)

'Patrick Langley's Arkady is a strange trip - luminescent, jagged and beautiful. A debut novel that twists, compels, descends and soars. I highly recommend it.' - Jenni Fagan, author of The Panopticon (praise for Arkady)

'The prose crackles with energy as the narrative follows the constant movement by placing the reader on a well-oiled tracking dolly, often zooming out to remind us of the bigger picture. Langley is a highly visual writer and Arkady an assured allegorical debut about a near-future Britain that is potentially only a recession or two away.' - Ben Myers, New Statesman (praise for Arkady)

Patrick Langley's debut novel, Arkady, was published in 2018 and longlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize and the Deborah Rogers Writers Prize. He lives in London.

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