The Answer to Everything

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

A heartbreakingly moving and hilariously funny novel about marriage, parenting, love, desire and betrayal.

Captivating Ruth Jones, author of Us Three

Tremendous William Boyd author of Any Human Heart

Funny, wry, unsettling Nathan Filer, author of The Shock of the Fall
Emily should be happy. She has a nice husband (even if they rarely speak to each other, let alone sleep in the same bed), two little boys she loves (even if a full nights sleep is a distant memory) and now, a brand-new house in which they can live out all of the bourgeois fantasies she knows she should be ashamed of. But still she aches for something more.

Enter Alathea and Elliott, their new neighbours, and also parents of two young boys. Alathea is intimidatingly confident and beautiful, but also disarmingly open and friendly. And Elliott Elliott is intriguing. Dishevelled, talented, charming and a little lost, he seems as fascinated by Emily as she is by him, and soon their friendship has reached an intensity neither of them seem able to control.

As riotously funny as it is painfully moving, this is a novel about disappointment and yearning; about parenting and growing up; and the search for love, meaning and connection.

Reviews

Emotional, absorbing Kennard has a poets flair for noticing the electric in the quotidian Guardian

Captivating and exquisite I loved the unpredictability of the story and the gorgeously lyrical writing. The dialogue is so clever and the characters so emotionally brave. This book sort of hypnotized me! Ruth Jones, author of Us Three

A funny, wry, unsettling and ultimately redemptive novel about love and narcissism, and about the versions of ourselves that technology both creates and destroys Nathan Filer, author of The Shock of the Fall

An intelligent, human, and moving story about love and betrayal in all of their puzzling subtleties Niamh Campbell, author of This Happy

A tremendous novel funny, shrewd, poignantly destabilising and charged with Luke Kennards laconic wit and his gimlet eye for the foibles and nuances of human behaviour. A huge success. William Boyd author of Any Human Heart

Packed with sparkling, laugh-out-loud dialogueand characters so nuanced their heartache feels real, The Answer to Everything is that rare thing: a book with a brilliant twist which also happens to be touching and hilarious Isy Suttie, author of The Actual One

Savagely funny, very highly recommendedBookseller

Superb many of Kennards readers will recognise so much of themselves and their lives in this book that theyll be nodding away like Churchill dogs Daily Telegraph

This satirical romance about nervy millennials is unbelievably sharp and snappy. I just loved this brilliant novel and cant recommend it enough Daily Mail

With shiny-sharp humour, Luke Kennard take us down the dark alleys of longing in the domestic setting Sainsburys Magazine

Author Bio

Luke Kennard is the author of five collections of poetry. He won an Eric Gregory Award in 2005 and wasshortlisted for the Forward Prize for BestCollection in 2007. He lectures at theUniversity of Birmingham. In 2014 hewas selected by the Poetry Book Societyas one of the Next Generation Poets. Hislatest poetry book, Cain, was publishedby Penned in the Margins in June 2016.The Transition is his first novel.