The Electric

'A writer of great energy and fearsome powers of observation' Hilary Mantel, TLS

Brighton, 1950s. When Daisy got married, she knew nothing of a police wife's struggles - the way secrecy and suspicion seep into the home. But over the years she finds ways to resist. She builds a fierce bond with her children, Linda and Michael, and escapes to the twilit world of the cinema.

By 1998 Linda and Michael are still struggling to cope after their mother's death, a decade before. Mike finds solace in suburban violence, while Linda invests her hopes in Lucas, her deaf teenage son. But the appearance of a man from Daisy's past threatens to upend their uneasy peace.

Meanwhile, Lucas is obsessed with his support worker, and relearning the sign language he shared with his grandmother. As the language comes back, so do memories of his early childhood. But will the truth about the events of ten years ago save his family, or destroy it?

The Electric is a brilliantly realised novel about three generations bound together by love, tragedy and the struggle to escape the past.

“What with coming of age, a love triangle or two and the discovery of family secrets over a fifty-year timeframe, there is a lot going on, and Hogan manages it elegantly. He has a knack for giving us just the right amount of detail - TLS”

Praise for Edward Hogan - .

Powerful and original . . . An impressive work, grimly bawdy, tense and moving - Sunday Times

No first novel I've read this year stays with me like Blackmoor by Edward Hogan . . . Hogan knows the terrain and the people, is wise beyond his years . . . and is a writer of great energy and fearsome powers of observation . . . Engaged, ambitious and deeply felt - all the things a first novel should be. He is a writer of huge promise - Hilary Mantel, TLS

There's a subtle magic to Hogan's prose, and a passionate concern for the part of the world where this novel is based, which invites comparison with D. H. Lawrence . . . [This novel] has confidence, mystery and an entrancing sense of itself - Independent on Sunday

A debut novel of ambitious substance and style . . . writing which is charged with a bite and passion harking back to his Northern forebears: D. H. Lawrence, most obviously, with a passing touch, perhaps, of Charlotte Bronte. His figurative language is neatly imaginative . . . Hogan is clearly a writer to watch - Independent

Edward Hogan was born in Derby in 1980 and now lives in Brighton. He is a graduate of the MA creative writing course at UEA and a recipient of the David Higham Award. His first novel, Blackmoor, won the Desmond Elliott Prize and was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award and the Dylan Thomas Prize. His second, The Hunger Trace, was shortlisted for the Encore Award. The Electric is his third.

'A writer of great energy and fearsome powers of observation' Hilary Mantel, TLS Brighton, 1950s. When Daisy got married, she knew nothing of a police wife's struggles - the way secrecy and suspicion seep into the home. But over the years she finds ways to resist. She builds a fierce bond with her children, Linda and Michael, and escapes to the twilit world of the cinema. By 1998 Linda and Michael are still struggling to cope after their mother's death, a decade before. Mike finds solace in suburban violence, while Linda invests her hopes in Lucas, her deaf teenage son. But the appearance of a man from Daisy's past threatens to upend their uneasy peace.Meanwhile, Lucas is obsessed with his support worker, and relearning the sign language he shared with his grandmother. As the language comes back, so do memories of his early childhood. But will the truth about the events of ten years ago save his family, or destroy it? The Electric is a brilliantly realised novel about three generations bound together by love, tragedy and the struggle to escape the past.

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