From the award-winning novelist, a ravishing new novel set between London and rural Australia, both a love story and a ghost story
Max didn’t believe in an afterlife. Until he died. Now, as a reluctant ghost trying to work out why he is still here, he watches his girlfriend, Hannah, lost in grief in the apartment they shared and begins to realize how much of her life was invisible to him.
In the weeks and months before Max’s death, Hannah was haunted by the secrets she left Australia to escape. A relationship with Max seemed to offer the potential of a fresh new chapter, but the past refused to stay hidden. It found expression in the untold stories of the people she grew up with, and the events that broke her family apart and led her to Max.
Both a celebration and an autopsy of a relationship, and spanning multiple generations, The Echoes is a novel about love and grief, motherhood and sisterhood, secrets and who has the right to reveal them—what of our past can be cast away and what is fixed forever, echoing down through the years.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Max didn’t believe in an afterlife. Until he died. Now, as a reluctant ghost trying to work out why he is still here, he watches his girlfriend, Hannah, lost in grief in the apartment they shared and begins to realize how much of her life was invisible to him.
In the weeks and months before Max’s death, Hannah was haunted by the secrets she left Australia to escape. A relationship with Max seemed to offer the potential of a fresh new chapter, but the past refused to stay hidden. It found expression in the untold stories of the people she grew up with, and the events that broke her family apart and led her to Max.
Both a celebration and an autopsy of a relationship, and spanning multiple generations, The Echoes is a novel about love and grief, motherhood and sisterhood, secrets and who has the right to reveal them—what of our past can be cast away and what is fixed forever, echoing down through the years.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"I loved this book. Evie Wyld moves effortlessly through times, places and people with a relentless, brutal, compassionate attention. I am in awe of her control over detail, emotion, and plot - and the way she shows us how we understand the personal through the local and the historical." - Jenn Ashworth
"A story about humans as they are - complicated bundles of pain, love, cruelty, cowardice, tenderness, bravery, loyalty. When the world is encouraging us to see each other as one-dimensional, complex characters like those in The Echoes are necessary. And on top of all that Wyld is funny." - Rowan Hisayo Buchanan
"It takes brilliance and verve to leap into the darkness as Evie Wyld does here. What a discovery - this is the first book of her books I have read; it will certainly not be the last." - Anne Enright
"Unsettling, vivid, and beautifully written." - Claire Fuller
"A stunning, immersive work of sharp prose, weaving intergenerational trauma and a ghost story and the complexities of love and families. Wyld gets better with each novel." - Sinéad Gleeson
"I've loved all of Evie Wyld's novels, but I think this may be my favourite. Like all the best ghost stories, The Echoes is also a love story. It's funny and moving and has such intelligent things to say about family, about shared histories and grief and the ways people find to heal themselves." - Paula Hawkins
"The Echoes is a gorgeous, wise, furious meditation on the ways in which we carry both love and pain across decades and hemispheres. Each new layer is a revelation of compassion and understanding. Wyld is brilliant on girlhood, on grief, on intimacy's terrible costs and its funny, messy grace. This is a jewel of a novel." - Fiona McFarlane
"A strange and wondrous novel, my book of the year by a mile. Wyld is a literary magician, doing more in the space of a few pages than many authors manage over the course of their careers." - Alex Preston
"A brilliant, satisfying novel that explores flinty and essential truths about love and loss. Full of complex, believable characters and grounded in the mysteries and frustrations of the living and the dead. Flawlessly written, intriguing and ambitious. It moved me very much." - Sharlene Teo
"A story about humans as they are - complicated bundles of pain, love, cruelty, cowardice, tenderness, bravery, loyalty. When the world is encouraging us to see each other as one-dimensional, complex characters like those in The Echoes are necessary. And on top of all that Wyld is funny." - Rowan Hisayo Buchanan
"It takes brilliance and verve to leap into the darkness as Evie Wyld does here. What a discovery - this is the first book of her books I have read; it will certainly not be the last." - Anne Enright
"Unsettling, vivid, and beautifully written." - Claire Fuller
"A stunning, immersive work of sharp prose, weaving intergenerational trauma and a ghost story and the complexities of love and families. Wyld gets better with each novel." - Sinéad Gleeson
"I've loved all of Evie Wyld's novels, but I think this may be my favourite. Like all the best ghost stories, The Echoes is also a love story. It's funny and moving and has such intelligent things to say about family, about shared histories and grief and the ways people find to heal themselves." - Paula Hawkins
"The Echoes is a gorgeous, wise, furious meditation on the ways in which we carry both love and pain across decades and hemispheres. Each new layer is a revelation of compassion and understanding. Wyld is brilliant on girlhood, on grief, on intimacy's terrible costs and its funny, messy grace. This is a jewel of a novel." - Fiona McFarlane
"A strange and wondrous novel, my book of the year by a mile. Wyld is a literary magician, doing more in the space of a few pages than many authors manage over the course of their careers." - Alex Preston
"A brilliant, satisfying novel that explores flinty and essential truths about love and loss. Full of complex, believable characters and grounded in the mysteries and frustrations of the living and the dead. Flawlessly written, intriguing and ambitious. It moved me very much." - Sharlene Teo
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