Gaining Ground

*'A LITERARY SENSATION: THE MUST-READ OF THE SUMMER' (OBSERVER)*

'One of the great novels of the twentieth century . . . Absolutely stunning' Max Porter
'An intricately, perfectly mapped journey into self-liberation . . . It will stay with me for the rest of my days' Samantha Harvey
'Wildly original . . . Beneath the radical disquiet is a beautiful hymn to the hearts and minds of women' Sarah Hall

I swear I loved them all, and I did the best I could. And then I left them, left all of it.

Abra has a perfect-seeming life as a wife and mother: until one day, she walks away, leaving only a note asking her family not to look for her.
In a woodland cabin, her new life alone begins. There are no mirrors, no clocks, no memories: just the squirrels breathing in the forest, and silence of vegetables growing.
Years later, a young woman arrives, and the past-flashes begin. Daughter? A strange word. Is this her? And what will this mean?

Joan Barfoot's Gaining Ground is a both a provocative meditation on living on your own terms and an exquisite work of art. It calls to anybody who has ever wanted to escape - who has asked what it costs to be wild, to be sane, to be free.

Joan Barfoot (born 1946) is the author of eleven novels. Her books, which reviewers have celebrated as 'harrowing and hilarious' and 'gloriously subversive', have been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. A recipient of the Marian Engel Award, she has also been a journalist during much of her career. She lives in London, Ontario, Canada.

An intricately, perfectly mapped journey into self-liberation. It ventures the question: how to live with, rather than against, oneself - an enormous, shimmering question that now lives inside me. I think it will for the rest of my days. -- Samantha Harvey (Booker Prize-winning author of Orbital)

One of the great novels of the twentieth century . . . Absolutely stunning. It felt like liberation, meeting Abra. I will pack her into my heart moving forward: she has much to teach us! -- Max Porter

A joyful and generative novel about running away to make a new home for a new self. -- Sarah Moss

A wildly original novel. I've never read a book so authentically frightening, so rationally subversive and so intuitively exposing . . . Beneath the narrative's radical disquiet is a beautiful hymn to the undeniable hearts and minds of women. -- Sarah Hall

A haunting book, with an outstanding sense of place and inner space: unsettling as well as memorable. -- Margaret Drabble

A modern masterpiece: provocative, radical and deeply moving on motherhood and how we choose to build our lives. -- Doireann ní Ghríofa

I absolutely loved Gaining Ground. It veers deftly between the beauty of the seasons and the hollowing despair of a stifled existence. Abra's dilemma electrified me. An extraordinary novel. -- Katherine May

If you want to pick a fight with yourself, pick this book. This is what the best writing does: makes you think, think again, think better. -- Claire Kilroy

A searing reminder of what we owe to ourselves. -- Saba Sams

Beneath its glassy surface, the currents of this book are vast and dark and dangerous. Weeks after finishing it, I still feel caught in the vortex of its desperately sad - and sadly still relevant - oppositions; still hear the silent howl of its inarticulable pain. Profoundly important and timely. -- Lucy Caldwell

I was gripped by this radical, deeply felt novel, finding myself increasingly immersed and moved by its fresh, insistent narrative of loss and becoming. I know this book will have a new life of being discussed, recommended and passed from friend to friend. -- Megan Hunter

I was blown away. Gaining Ground has been a guiding light for my work and I'm delighted that this prescient novel is having a new life. -- Alice Vincent

One of those rare books which put you in touch with yourself as deftly and as deeply as The Bell Jar. -- Nell Dunn