Who takes their mother on honeymoon with them? Gordon Garrety does - and it doesn’t turn out well in Justin Haythe’s unsettling character study.

After a year of marriage, Gordon and Annie finally take their long-delayed honeymoon to Venice, accompanied by Maureen, Gordon’s eccentric mother, and her new friend, Gerhardt. The happy couple are instantly seduced by the world’s most unlikely city, but the brilliance of Venice seems to distort rather than illuminate. The story gathers a palpable intensity before a single act of absurd but devastating violence pricks their bubble, and lays bare the emptiness at the core of their gilded lives.

Longlisted
The Man Booker Prize 2004
Published by
Picador
Publication date
Justin Haythe

Justin Haythe

About the Author

Although Justin Haythe hit the accolade trail with his first novel, The Honeymoon, cinema has proved a bigger pull than fiction, and he is a successful screenwriter who pays little attention to genre.
More about Justin Haythe