John Lanchester

Harvard Book Store welcomes JOHN LANCHESTER, the acclaimed author of The Debt to Pleasure and Capital, for a discussion of his latest novel, The Wall. He will be joined in conversation by New Yorker critic, writer, and Harvard professor JAMES WOOD.

About The Wall

Ravaged by the Change, an island nation in a time very like our own has built the Wall―an enormous concrete barrier around its entire coastline. Joseph Kavanagh, a new Defender, has one task: to protect his section of the Wall from the Others, the desperate souls who are trapped amid the rising seas outside and are a constant threat. Failure will result in death or a fate perhaps worse: being put to sea and made an Other himself. Beset by cold, loneliness, and fear, Kavanagh tries to fulfill his duties to his demanding Captain and Sergeant, even as he grows closer to his fellow Defenders. A dark part of him wonders whether it would be interesting if something did happen, if they came, if he had to fight for his life . . .

John Lanchester―acclaimed as "an elegant and wonderfully witty writer" (New York Times) and "a writer of rare intelligence" (Los Angeles Times)―has written a taut, hypnotic novel of a broken world and what might be found when all is lost. The Wall blends the most compelling issues of our time―rising waters, rising fear, rising political division―into a suspenseful story of love, trust, and survival.

Praise

“John Lanchester’s previous novels have all been memorable evocations of the world we’re familiar with, but The Wall is something new: almost an allegory, almost a dystopian-future warning, partly an elegant study of the nature of storytelling itself.” —Philip Pullman

“Book by book, John Lanchester proves himself one of our necessary writers, equal in wit, good nature, and fundamental sanity to whatever insane thing the new century throws at us. Like some lost work by George Orwell, The Wall reveals what’s in front of all our noses.” —Garth Risk Hallberg

“Dystopian fiction done just right, with a scenario that’s all too real.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review