Idiopathy

Shortlisted for the Costa First Novel award 2013, this bitterly humorous debut is a novel of love, narcissism, and ailing cattle. Katherine and Daniel used to be together.

Now Katherine hates everyone, but not as much as she hates herself, while Daniel tells his new girlfriend he loves her, because not telling her would be like telling her he doesn’t love her. From out of the blue comes a message from their old friend, rehabilitated party animal Nathan – now adjusting to his mother’s new career as a misery memoirist, her tales of maternal hardships the stuff of Twitter superstardom. Nathan suggests a reunion, but with the bad blood flowing like cheap wine, it can’t end well.

As a bovine plague sweeps across the nation, a toxic dinner party gets underway – its atmosphere so poisonous that none of them will escape infection …