2007 Betty Trask Prize (nominee)
'Few disappointments compare to the loss of eternity...'
Alice has been promised immortality and paradise as a member of the true religion of The Unbelievable Potential of Human Beings. Her mother is a pillar of the church and her brother is a deacon. But Alice is faltering; she's losing the knack of living forever. Her faith isn't helped by her father William, a part-time arsonist, rejected husband, ladies' man and fraudster, or by Jude, an attractive fellow church-goer with a chequered past. In this intricate and satisfying debut, Julie Maxwell writes with dry, dark humour, wit and intelligence about sex and the sect and the heart of darkness.
Genre: General Fiction
Alice has been promised immortality and paradise as a member of the true religion of The Unbelievable Potential of Human Beings. Her mother is a pillar of the church and her brother is a deacon. But Alice is faltering; she's losing the knack of living forever. Her faith isn't helped by her father William, a part-time arsonist, rejected husband, ladies' man and fraudster, or by Jude, an attractive fellow church-goer with a chequered past. In this intricate and satisfying debut, Julie Maxwell writes with dry, dark humour, wit and intelligence about sex and the sect and the heart of darkness.
Genre: General Fiction
Used availability for Julie Maxwell's You Can Live Forever