It's here! Browse the 2024 Penguin Christmas gift guide
A Possible Life

A Possible Life

Summary

'Profound . . . Faulks evokes a deep compassion' OBSERVER
'Does what a good novel should - it unsettles, it moves, and it forces us to question who we are' SUNDAY TIMES
'A delight . . . moving and exciting' DAILY TELEGRAPH


Five lives overlap across two centuries. School teacher Geoffrey’s war takes him to the brink of sanity; Billy’s fortitude lifts him from the Victorian slums in London; Elena and Jeanne interrogate the notion of the soul, from opposite points of view, a century apart. And for Anya, a young American singer-songwriter, only her producer Jack can understand the depths of their bond as art and life collide.

In a symphony of fiction, A Possible Life defies the boundaries of the novel, to explore the deepest questions of how we are connected to one another.


'A Possible Life is more than the sum of its parts . . . the stories acquire power as resonances between them accrete. Only at the end do you realise you've been won over by their quiet, glinting virtuosity' THE TIMES

Reviews

  • Most easily appreciated as a series of compelling short stories. Poignant, powerful and tender, they are lined by the pain and passion, hope and hardship, accident and design which make up the drama of an individual life
    John Koski, Mail on Sunday

About the author

Sebastian Faulks

Sebastian Faulks has written nineteen books, of which A Week in December and The Fatal Englishman were number one in the Sunday Times bestseller lists. He is best known for Birdsong, part of his French trilogy, and Human Traces, the first in an ongoing Austrian trilogy. Before becoming a full-time writer, he worked as a journalist on national papers. He has also written screenplays and has appeared in small roles on stage. He lives in London.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more