The Palm House

Laura Miller and Edmund Putnam have been friends for a long time. Theirs is a happy meeting of minds, with long evenings spent huddled in an ancient pub by the Thames, where they share office gossip, reflect on their teenage passions, and lament the state of the world.

Recently, though, Putnam has been harder to reach: he has lost his father, and the magazine to which he has dedicated his life has been hijacked by an insufferable new editor, Simon ‘call me Shove’ Halfpenny.

Laura has her own problems: a prickly mother and a tricky past, and in a beautiful and indifferent city, her day-to-day life is precarious. But as Putnam starts to sink into despondency, she must try to bring him back.

The Palm House offers Gwendoline Riley’s trademark keen observation and wit, and leaves us - somehow - by way of enduring friendships and small mercies, with a curious sense of possibility.

Praise for Gwendoline Riley
‘Riley’s prose is so electric, so alive with humour and insight and passion, that by the end you will want to stand up and cheer’ - Paul Murray, ‘Best Books of the Year’, Guardian

‘A novelist of uncompromising brilliance’ - Olivia Laing, ‘Best Books of the Year’, Observer

‘Gwendoline Riley is a genius’ - Evening Standard

‘So painful, so funny and acutely observed’ - David Nicholls

‘Achingly sad and subversively funny’ - Monica Ali, author of Brick Lane

'Eviscerating, elegant, explosive... Riley's portraits are so nuanced that every character feels real, and she is funny and painfully true' - Financial Times

‘What a phenomenal ear she has, and how remorselessly funny she is’ - Kevin Barry, author of Night Boat to Tangier

‘A masterpiece… genuinely extraordinary’ - Irish Times

‘A writer of singular vision’ - Guardian

'Caustic, unsparing, occasionally funny and always perceptive... Riley's brutal honesty and precise, evocative language open up the possibility of joy amid wreckage with caveats... Luminous and dazzlingly brilliant' -Irish Times