The Ninth Life of Louis Drax
Nine-year-old Louis Drax is a problem child: bright, precocious, deceitful, and dangerously, disturbingly, accident prone. When he falls off a cliff into a ravine, the accident seems almost predestined. Louis miraculously survives – but the family has been shattered. Louis’ father has vanished, his mother is paralysed by shock, and Louis lies in a deep coma from which he may never emerge. In a clinic in Provence, Dr Pascal Dannachet tries to coax Louis back to consciousness. But the boy defies medical logic, startling Dannachet out of his safe preconceptions, and drawing him inexorably into the dark heart of Louis’ buried world. Only Louis holds the key to the mystery surrounding his fall – and he can’t communicate. Or can he?
‘A strange mixture of psychological detective story and disturbing exploration of the human mind…deeply moving.’ Bookmuse.
‘A black, teasing but very humane novel…Jensen’s stories are always engagingly ravelled.’ M John Harrison The Guardian
‘Liz Jensen’s new novel has already been picked up by Anthony Minghella for a film adaptation. It’s hardly surprising: this is a wonderfully unsettling psychological thriller … An oddly beautiful journey into the darkest corners of the human soul’ Mail on Sunday
‘This is literary thriller writing of the first order’ – Readers Digest
‘Liz Jensen has created an extraordinary character in the shape of Louis Drax: vivid, disquieting and blessed with a gloriously sick sense of humour… a magnetic read that will delight and disturb in equal measures’ Daily Mail
‘The Ninth Life of Louis Drax has all the makings of a dramatic, suspenseful bestseller… a novel that demands to be finished in one sitting’ The Observer
‘Liz Jensen’s latest book is emotionally compelling, morally fascinating and slightly appalling … The result is breathtaking.’ Independent on Sunday
‘What begins as a funny ha-ha exploration of a troubled mind soon turns funny-peculiar. Cunning and compelling, this brilliant psychological study reveals how mums and dads really can screw you up’ Daily Mirror
‘An exceptional writer’ Scotland on Sunday
Excerpt
