JESSIE GREENGRASS was born in 1982. She studied philosophy in Cambridge and London, where she now lives with her partner and child. Her story collection, An Account of the Decline of the Great Auk, According to One Who Saw It, won the Edge Hill Prize 2016 and a Somerset Maugham Award, and she was shortlisted for the PFD/Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year. Sight is her first novel.
'A dazzling obsessive entry in a burgeoning genre. Unusual and
absorbing... it is [the narrator's] obsessive ruminations, and how
they find expression in controlled, stylish prose, that make the
book so exciting. Her intelligence and honesty continue to dazzle,
and the novel as a whole exudes a strange consoling power.' –
The New Yorker
'Sight delves into a lot in under 200 pages: Mothers and daughters,
birth and death, loss and grief, finding one's balance, the ardor
and arduousness of scientific discovery. But it is also a book
about the limits of knowledge – learning to accept them, yet
continuously pushing to expand their boundaries. Readers willing to
give themselves over to Greengrass' penetrating vision will surely
expand theirs.' – NPR
'[A book about] how to survive one's own parentage and one's own
mind, and the way those two projects are connected -- with how
meaning and understanding can be reached, and at what cost, in life
or in art, or in science.' –Harpers
‘A brilliant and meditative piece of art. The deceptively simple
story, that of a daughter losing a mother, and the same daughter
becoming a mother, weaves effortlessly, organically, elliptically,
in with the history of science. Greengrass stuns the reader with
her intellect and grace, with her uncanny ability to turn a story
into many, and many into one.’ – Weike Wang, author of
Chemistry
'One of the finest contemporary English novels I've read. Elegant
and intelligent, troubling and serious… exquisitely
well-assembled.’ – Max Porter, author of Grief Is the Thing with
Feathers
‘I read Sight with so much ache and admiration. In
many ways Greengrass reminds me of Virginia Woolf — in her
intelligence and scope of interest, and in her evocative ability to
capture a single consciousness, all while seemingly re-inventing
the novel form. Sight is a beautiful debut, and
Greengrass is an important new voice in fiction.’ – Jamie Quatro,
author of Fire Sermon
‘I wanted to read this book as slowly as I could, underlining every
sentence, inhaling it in small sips – and to press it into the
hands of every woman, mother, and daughter I know.’ – Nadja
Spielgelman, author of I’m Supposed to Protect You From All
This
'Such a finely-wrought novel, written with brilliant assurance,
clarity, and depth, Sight is a masterpiece of restraint and
intensity. It does justice to the wild mysteries and
complexities at the heart of what it means to be human, and to live
in this world.' – Elisa Albert, author of After Birth
‘A stunning debut novel, about what we can know of our bodies,
ourselves, and each other. Greengrass has captured the experience
of pregnancy and motherhood like no one else.’ – Lauren Elkin,
author of Flâneuse
‘I honestly can't remember the last time I read a novel so near to
perfection, so full of grace. With every page I was in awe of the
author's sense of pace, her attention to nuance, the acuity of
feeling and clarity of reflection’ –Sara Baume, author
of Spill Simmer Falter Wither
'In a culture that downplays and refuses to listen to women’s
pain, Sight finds a way to extract our attention... The
redemption is all in the remarkable beauty and gravity of the
prose. This is a quiet and authentic resistance, requiring us to
bear with a woman’s pain all the way through.' – BOMB
Magazine
'With visceral, elegantly wrought truths of life and loss,
this is an exciting companion to Sheila Heti's recent Motherhood
(2018).' – Booklist
'Greengrass writes with precision and honesty, providing an
unconventional but nuanced, meditative experience.' –
Publisher's Weekly
‘Jessie Greengrass has found a remarkable way to make us think
about...body and being, image and idea’ – Lavinia Greenlaw
'Unflinchingly focused on life and death, love and loss, [Sight] is
a densely packed collection of clearly articulated insights on the
struggle to bridge the gaps between ourselves and those to whom we
yearn to be close, our efforts to define and take full measure of
ourselves. It is novel as excavation. Greengrass digs deep below
the surface to explore the human condition and presents the reader
with unearthed truths to ponder and pocket.' – Kirkus
'[An] assured first novel.' – Library Journal, Best
Books of Summer & Fall 2018
'The poise, intelligence and serious intent of Sight will be
lauded, and rightly so. I would not be surprised to see it on
heavyweight prize lists.’ – The Sunday (UK)
‘As a meditation on parenthood, grief and the awareness that
knowledge can be both wondrous and terrifying… an exceptionally
accomplished debut.’ – Observer
‘Greengrass’s fiercely cerebral despatch from one of life’s most
extraordinary rites of passage impresses linguistically,
intellectually and emotionally.’ – The Mail on Sunday (UK)
‘A most unusual debut… fiercely intelligent and always
probing... accomplished and melancholic.’
– Irish Times (UK)
‘Exceptional… The prose is unsentimental, measured, breathtaking in
its elegance, but never precious or mannered…. Sentences move with
extraordinary cadence towards devastatingly bathetic or utterly
heartbreaking conclusions. [It is a book about] the ongoing and
ever-unfinished coming into being of a person. It brings all these
things together, loosely and delicately, in a way that is
unexpectedly and remarkably moving.’ – The Spectator
‘[An] outstanding first noel. Jessie Greengrass’s masterfully
interwoven tales of discovery both personal and medical are
‘prayer(s) to understanding’, attempts to render accessible the
uncharted regions of the self.’ – TLS
‘A cabinet of curiosities… [a] strange, affecting poem of a book.’
– New Statesman
‘This is a first novel – an original one by a writer who clearly
has considerable gifts and a serious, nuanced approach to
individual psychology and intellectual history.’ – Financial
Times
‘Cerebral and tender, Greengrass’ voice is smart and original’ –
Elle
‘Remarkable and affecting’ – Literary Review
‘It’s hard not to be blown away by the sheer brilliance of the work
and her ability as a wordsmith.’ – Storgy
‘Written in gorgeous, crystalline prose, Sight is a
moving exploration of perception and wonder.’
–Dazed
‘Beautiful to read…wise and insightful…completely compelling’ –
Monocle
‘This singularly introspective book is a stimulating read about
motherhood and the disconnect within ourselves. Add snippets
of Freud’s development of psychoanalysis and his relationship with
his daughter and you get a spectacularly written novel.’ –Book Riot
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