Author(s): Jonathan Buckley

Novel | Giramondo

'I can talk for as long as you like, no problem. You'll just have to tell me when to stop. How far back do you want to take it?'

Tell is a probing, exuberant and complex examination of the ways in which we make stories of our lives and of other people's. Structured as a series of interview transcripts with a woman who worked as a gardener for a wealthy businessman and art collector who has disappeared, and may or may not have committed suicide, it is a thrilling novel of strange, intoxicating immediacy, and the co-winner of the 2022 Novel Prize.

‘Always well crafted, this novel is engaging in parts and digressive in others, which adds to its realism, capturing how people chatter their way down alleys, rarely hewing to the main road of a tale…. The buildup in Tell is perpetual, a sense that an explanation must be coming. But the author diverges from expectations and converges on reality, where remembering is not the same as understanding. Abruptly, someone may just disappear, and all that remains is the sight of a figure wandering across a bridge - no splash heard, just the fading ripples of “why.”’ — Tom Rachman, New York Times

'Buckley's fiction is subtle and fastidiously low-key...every apparently loose thread, when tugged, reveals itself to be woven into the themes [and] gets better the more you allow it to settle in your mind.' - Michel Faber, The Guardian

'Exactly why Buckley is not already revered and renowned as a novelist in the great European tradition remains a mystery that will perhaps only be addressed at that final godly hour when all the overlooked authors working in odd and antique modes will receive their just rewards.' - Ian Sansom, Times Literary Supplement