Ticknor: A Novel

“A small masterpiece” (National Post)—An utterly original first novel from a rising international star



On a cold, rainy night, an aging bachelor named George Ticknor prepares to visit his childhood friend Prescott, now one of the leading intellectual lights of their generation. Reviewing a life of petty humiliations, and his friend’s brilliant career, Ticknor sets out for the dinner party—a party at which he’d just as soon never arrive.

Distantly inspired by the real-life friendship between the great historian William Hickling Prescott and his biographer, Ticknor is a witty, fantastical study in resentment. It recalls such modern masterpieces of obsession as Thomas Bernhard’s The Loser and Nicholson Baker’s The Mezzanine and announces the arrival of a charming and original novelist, one whose stories have already earned her a passionate international following.





“A perceptive act of ventriloquism, [Ticknor] rewards thought and rereading, and offers a finely cadenced voice, intelligence and . . . moody beauty.” —Catherine Bush, The Globe and Mail


“Confoundedly strange [and] fascinating.” —Nicholas Dinka, Quill & Quire