The Kindness of Strangers

Synopsis

IN A HOUSE BUILT ON LIES, THE TRUTH WILL GET YOU KILLED.

London, 1953. One foggy night, in the dead of February, a diffident young man arrives unannounced at 42 Tregunter Road in Chelsea. Self-styled Bohemian Mrs Honor Wilson, who runs a minor literary journal and lodgings from this timeworn Victorian house, introduces him to her ‘dear house guests’: Robbie, the writer; Mina, the aspiring socialite; George, the debutante; and Saul, the refugee poet. Jimmy Sullivan is a family friend, Honor says – yet clearly, something is very amiss. Despite everyone’s suspicions, she lets the stranger move into the attic.

As they each try to disprove Jimmy’s dubious account of himself, secrets, jealousies, and disturbing schemes come to light, fracturing the household’s delicate allegiances and setting in motion, unstoppably, a tale of perilous self-invention, complicated love, and murderous revenge.

Author

Emma Garman is a writer living by the sea in Brighton. Her journalism has appeared in Literary Review, The Daily Beast and History News Network, and she wrote ‘Feminize Your Canon’, a column for The Paris Review about brilliant and undersung women authors. Emma has an MA in creative writing from the City College of New York and an MA in literature from Queen Mary University of London. The Kindness of Strangers is her debut novel.