Here We Are: Graham Swift

It is Brighton, 1959, and the theatre at the end of the pier is having its best summer season in years. Ronnie, a brilliant young magician, and Evie, his dazzling assistant, are top of the bill, drawing audiences each night. Meanwhile, Jack – Jack Robinson, as in ‘before you can say’ – is everyone’s favourite compère, a born entertainer, holding the whole show together. As the summer progresses, the off-stage drama between the three begins to overshadow their theatrical success, and events unfold which will have lasting consequences for all their futures. Rich, comic, alive and subtly devastating, Here We Are is a masterly piece of literary magicianship which pulls back the curtain on the human condition. ‘One to watch for 2020’ according to:The Sunday Times The TimesThe Daily Telegraph The Guardian Financial Times Evening Standard The Scotsman The Irish Times ‘He tells simple, truthful stories about what feel like real people. Here We Are is a welcome addition to a proud legacy.’ The Big Issue The variety of voices and its historical and emotional reach are so finely entwined, it is as perfect and smooth as an egg. Passages leap out all the time, demanding to be reread, or committed to memory… It is perhaps too simple to say that Swift creates a form of fictional magic, but what he can do with a page is out of the ordinary, far beyond most mortals’ ken.’ Rosemary Goring,The Herald’Here We Are is a subtle portrait of a vanished world, with moving passages about the problems of wartime evacuees returning to impoverished London life after the wonders of the countryside.’ The Independent ‘In Here We Are, Swift does not just dwell on the pivotal moments of our lives, but traces their shockwaves both forward and back. Moving seamlessly from pre-war to post, from the events of one illusory, youthful summer to the present, we are given candid access to the innermost reflections of three people who loved and betrayed each other. The end result is the stuff of life, an enduring mystery that Ronnie, Evie, Jack – that we all – must live with. I thought it was wonderful.’ Joseph Knox, author of Sirens’As with all his books, it’s the moments of quiet, undramatic poignancy that stay with you’ Sunday Express’a quietly, devastating, magical novel’ Telegraph’With a wizardry of his own, Swift conjures up an about-to-disappear little world and turns it into something of wider resonance’ Sunday Times ‘We are propelled into something extraordinary…Swift’s closing account of a mundane world momentarily pierced by a shaft of numinous mystery is magnificent’ New York Times ‘Graham Swift has perfected a distinctive style…his beautiful new novel Here We Are…is a work of magic: neither trick nor illusion, but a flash of truth’ Wall Street Journal ‘Swift captures the tragicomedy of life’ Washington Post ‘Here We Are is a paragon of the magic of compressed narration…Once again, Swift has demonstrated wizardry in his ability to conjure magic out of ordinary lives’ NPR USA ‘ ‘”Here we are.” How easily those three small words can vanish in expected niceties-and how loaded they can be with bewilderment at the inexorable ”tilt of the world”. Graham Swift conjures them all, and more, in this short, word-perfect novel’ Sydney Morning Herald ‘Graham Swift is the quiet master of fiction’ The Age, Melbourne ‘An ethereal foray into the vanishing world of the magician…beautiful, breath-taking and heart