First Person

First Person is both comic and frightening. At times I caught a glimpse of Money-era Martin Amis in Flanagans satirical asides on the Australian publishing industry And theres a hint, too, of an epochal gloom that is redolent of the The Great Gatsby. Yet there are also passages touched with the virtuosity that shone so brightly in The Narrow Road that are pure Flanagan Studded with sharp, breath-catching observations about the finite nature of life -- Carl Wilkinson * Financial Times * The novel, with its switch backing recollections and cyclical dialogue, its penetrating scenes of birth and, eventually, death, is enigmatic and mesmerizing * The New Yorker * Perhaps the most prodigal account of writers block ever written Despite some sprightly satirical sallies, mostly about publishing, First Person is a serious treatment of important modern issues (corporate corruption, exploitation of trust, the impudent dismissal of truth) -- David Grylls * Sunday Times * A black comedy about the unreliability of memory and the warped values of modern publishing... the beauty of First Person is the way it blossoms into a much richer novel than that outline scenario suggests.... readable and thought-provoking -- Max Davidson * Mail on Sunday * A dark, occasionally demented book, that is as unsettling as it is inspired -- Miranda Collinge * Esquire UK *

Richard Flanagan was born in Tasmania in 1961. His novels Death of a River Guide, The Sound of One Hand Clapping, Goulds Book of Fish, The Unknown Terrorist, Wanting and The Narrow Road to the Deep North have received numerous honours and are published in 42 countries. He won the Man Booker Prize for The Narrow Road to the Deep North in 2014.