FROM THE INTERNATIONALLY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF WHAT I LOVED

'A work of dizzying intensity . . . an intriguing and sure-handed debut ' Don DeLillo

'Brilliant . . . a dark, mesmerising debut' Independent on Sunday

'Hustvedt has pulled off nothing less than a re-mapping of the modern feminist psyche' Daily Telegraph

Iris Vegan, a graduate student living alone and impoverished in New York, encounters four strong characters who fascinate and in different ways subordinate her: an inscrutable urban recluse who employs her to record the possessions of a murdered woman; a photographer whose eerie portrait of Iris takes on a life of its own; an old woman in hospital who tries to claim a remnant of the ailing Iris; and a professor she has an affair with. An exploration of female identity in an age when the old definitions - as some man's daughter/wife/mother - no longer apply, fuelled with eroticism and a sense of menace.

'Attests to Hustvedt's thoroughly original style and her lucid contemporary voice . . . the announcement of a talented writer's arrival' Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

PRAISE FOR SIRI HUSTVEDT:

'Hustvedt is that rare artist, a writer of high intelligence, profound sensuality and a less easily definable capacity for which the only word I can find is wisdom' Salman Rushdie

'One of our finest novelists' Oliver Sacks

'Reading a Hustvedt novel is like consuming the best of David Lynch' Financial Times

'Few contemporary writers are as satisfying and stimulating to read as Siri Hustvedt' Washington Post