Contact [Paperback]

Highly accomplished, expertly paced... the work of an author at the very top of his game. -- Press Association, 9th February 2010

A riveting and edgy read - the dialogue and scene-setting are spot on. --The Bookseller: panel choices, June 2010

A thoughtful and unsettling novel in which anxieties and insights slowly acrete. --The Times Literary Supplement

A book group could really go to town on this one, but you can guess by now I was completely drawn in...and Contact became my first really unputdownable book of 2010. --Dove grey reader (blog) February 2010

This is a startling breakthough novel from Jonathan Buckley, acclaimed author of Ghost MacIndoe and So He Takes the Dog. It will be up for every prize going: a gripping, utterly compelling book whose themes hit home and hard for the baby boom generation. Dominic Pattison's life is one of level contentment: his marriage has proved happy and durable; his business, too, is successful.And then Sam Williams, a builder and ex-squaddie, enters his life. Sam claims to be his son. Yet is Sam who he says he is? After almost thirty years, Dominic can remember little of the affair with Sam's mother. His instinct is to recoil from this aggressive and volatile stranger, who could, with just a few words, take his life apart. But Sam refuses to be dismissed. With its deft switches of sympathy between menaced 'father' and rebuffed 'son' and its exploration of the intricacies of memory, Contact will resonate long with its readers.

Jonathan Buckley is the author of five novels, including Ghost MacIndoe and So He Takes the Dog. He lives in Hove.