Watch Over Me

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

The pressure of my blood, the beat of my heart, is a message to you. You read each second of my body's life.

It is the present day. The foggy northern city of Port Angelsund is under occupation by the soldiers of Garrison. Sylvie is a young woman just trying to survive. When she is singled out for punishment at a Garrison checkpoint, a young lieutenant rescues her from torture. Though she knows the terrible risks of collaboration, she cannot stop herself from falling in love. Watched by Garrison's vast machinery of surveillance, Sylvie discovers she is also under the protective and suspicious gaze of her lover.

When her older brother returns on a terrorist mission that will throw the city into chaos, Sylvie's loyalties are tested beyond breaking point. Her deep bond with her brother and her illicit passion for her Garrison officer are loves that cannot coexist. Whatever she does is betrayal.

In the spirit of Hiroshima Mon Amour and Suite Francaise, this sensual and heart-breaking novel brings the classic conflicts of war and occupation, devotion and treachery, up to the present minute. While the unimaginable power of modern warfare advances, Watch Over Me reminds us that the things at stake-survival, refuge and love-remain the things worth fighting for.

'This gem of a novel ticks all the boxes-a book of flaming affections and indefatigable loves, dystopian and convincing, a tale of pilgrimages and adventures, all beautifully textured and lovingly narrated.' TOM KENEALLY, Booker Prize-winning author of Schindler's Ark

'Corbett's atmospheric landscape, with its eerie glacial light, its drifts of fog and explosives, wild geese and Sequestered Forest, is so vividly realised and starkly described, the cold and fog seem to creep beyond the page. For the struggling residents under military occupation, death comes "delivered from the sky". Yet for Sylvie and her family, love persists in all its forms.' MIREILLE JUCHAU, author of The World Without Us

Reviews

'Claire Corbett is at once a lyrical fantasist and a writer who tough-mindedly grips felt realities. Watch Over Me depicts a world where love and suspicion, resistance and atrocity, pride and shame are so intricately intertwined that the righteous struggle of Port Angelsund against Garrison is at once psychologically tense and narratively riveting. The book feels like a one of its kind mixture of Aldous Huxley, Peter Carey, and Ursula K. Le Guin.' - Associate Professor Nicholas Birns, New York University, author and critic

Author Bio

Claire Corbett was born in Canada and has worked in film and government policy. Her first novel, When We Have Wings, was published in 2011 and shortlisted for the 2012 Barbara Jefferis Award and the 2012 Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction. Her recent fiction and essays have been published in a range of journals, including The Best Australian Stories 2014/2015, Griffith Review, Southerly and Overland. She has written on defence and strategy for The Diplomat, The Strategist and The Monthly.