Jake is in the tailspin of old age. His wife has passed away, his son is in prison, and now he is about to lose his past to Alzheimer's. As the disease takes hold of him, Jake's memories become increasingly unreliable. What happened to his daughter? Is she alive, or long dead? Why is his son imprisoned? And why can't he shake the memory of a yellow dress and one lonely, echoing gunshot? Like Marilynne Robinson's "Gilead, The Wilderness "holds us in its grip from the first sentence to the last" "with the sheer beauty of its language and its ruminations on love and loss. An Orange Prize Finalist A Man Booker Prize Nominee Winner of the 2009 Betty Trask Prize A Guardian First Book Award Nominee
Author

Samantha Harvey has completed postgraduate courses in philosophy and in Creative Writing. In addition to writing, she has traveled extensively and taught in Japan and has lived in Ireland and New Zealand. She recently co-founded an environmental charity and lives in Bath, England. Her first novel, The Wilderness, was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2009, longlisted for the 2009 Man Booker Prize and won the 2009 Betty Trask Prize.