With Your Crooked Heart

In sharp, elegant prose (Publishers Weekly, starred review), With Your Crooked Heart introduces Louise, a tough and introspective Londoner trapped in a subtle battle between two brothers. Paul and Johnnie were born twelve years apart, in a one-bedroom flat in a dingy London suburb. Their ascent to money and power looks easy from a distance, but the seductive brothers burn those who get too close. When Paul marries Louise, Johnnie is part of the contract, and their daughter, Anna, is tangled in it from birth. Paul deals in the development of contaminated land; self-destructive Johnnie deals in crime. When Johnnie has to flee the country, Louise goes with him. Their trip sets in motion inevitabilities that have smoldered beneath the surface from the beginning, a dire and redemptive chain of events that devastates every branch of this crooked family tree. With Your Crooked Heart's sensuous, daring prose brilliantly exhibits Dunmore's poet's ear for language and photographer's eye for images (Newsday) and confirms The Guardian's claim that Dunmore is an electrifying and original talent.

Author: Helen Dunmore
Publisher: Grove Press
Published: 01/02/2001
Pages: 256
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.60lbs
Size: 8.27h x 5.46w x 0.71d
ISBN: 9780802137708

Review Citation(s):
New York Times 04/15/2001 pg. 28