The Book of Guilt

by Catherine Chidgey

Overview

In an alternate world where nobody won WWII, three brothers are the only boys left in an orphanage whose dark secret is the reason for their existence—and the key to their survival—from the acclaimed author of Pet.

After a very different outcome to WWII than the one history recorded, 1979 England is a country ruled by a government whose aims have sinister underpinnings and alliances. In the Hampshire countryside, 13-year-old triplets Vincent, Lawrence and William are the last remaining residents at the Captain Scott Home for Boys, where every day they must take medicine to protect themselves from a mysterious illness to which many of their friends have succumbed. The lucky ones who recover are allowed to move to Margate, a seaside resort of mythical proportions.

In nearby Exeter, 13-year-old Nancy lives a secluded life with her parents, who dote on her but never let her leave the house. As the triplets' lives begin to intersect with Nancy’s, bringing to light a horrifying truth about their origins and their likely fate, the children must unite to escape – and survive.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538774076
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	09/16/2025
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Catherine Chidgey’s novels have been published to international acclaim. Her first, In a Fishbone Church, won Best First Book at the New Zealand Book Awards and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. In the UK it won the Betty Trask Award and was longlisted for the Orange Prize. Her second, Golden Deeds, was a Notable Book of the Year in the New York Times and a Best Book in the LA Times. Catherine has won the Prize in Modern Letters, the Katherine Mansfield Award, the Katherine Mansfield Fellowship and the Janet Frame Fiction Prize. Her novel Remote Sympathy was shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award and longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her novels The Wish Child and The Axeman’s Carnival both won the Acorn Prize for Fiction, New Zealand’s most prestigious literary award. She lives in Cambridge, New Zealand, and lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Waikato.

Editorial Reviews

What a book! Tense, inventive, mysterious and moving, The Book of Guilt poses big questions in the context of a rocketing plot. I loved it completely.”—Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

“I raced through Catherine Chidgey’s latest in awe of her trademark gifts: propulsive plotting, psychological acuity, and a knack for the uncanny. But it’s the novel’s moral questions that linger long after reading – as explored through the voices of children whom society has deemed expendable. The Book of Guilt literally infiltrated my dreams, as it will yours.”—Tania James, author of Loot

“Eloquent prose, rich characterizations, and knotty concepts – an emotional and intellectual tour de force.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

PRAISE FOR THE AXEMAN'S CARNIVAL

"Gorgeously haunting."—Library Journal, starred review

PRAISE FOR PET
 

• BEST OF THE YEAR: WASHINGTON POST, NEW YORKER, SLATE, CRIMEREADS, GOOD HOUSEKEEPING, AMAZON BOOK REVIEW
• NYT EDITORS' CHOICE

"Sharp-edged, deliciously dark."—Slate

PRAISE FOR REMOTE SYMPATHY

• LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION
• SHORTLISTED FOR THE DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD

"Chidgey is a writer of formidable resources, a deft stylist posessed of uncanny imaginative acuity."—The Guardian

"Highly original and deeply researched, Catherine Chidgey's REMOTE SYMPATHY is a powerful and disturbing study in terrible lies and the human need to believe them . . . Few readers will close the covers of this book unshaken."—Annie Proulx, author of Barkskins

"A vital turn in Holocaust literature."—Publisher's Weekly, starred review

From the Publisher

★ 2025-05-30
In this gripping novel with elements of a fairy tale, Chidgey examines the lives of parentless children in an alternative Britain that feels frighteningly plausible.

Imagine World War II ended in a treaty without winners or losers after Hitler’s assassination by German conspirators in 1943; since then, British scientists have had access to studies “of immense scientific value” made in “the camps,” as they are called with pointed vagueness. In 1979, this history is taught to 13-year-old triplet brothers—mercurial William, softhearted Lawrence, and thoughtful, watchful Vincent, who narrates most of the book. They live in a group home for boys, part of the Sycamore Homes program established by the government in 1944 to raise parentless children. Doted on by a threesome of Morning, Afternoon, and Night mothers, taught from the encyclopedicBook of Knowledge (an actual publication) and in weekly ethics discussions, the Sycamore boys have had happy if isolated childhoods marred only by incessant sickliness. Those who recuperate from “the Bug” get to move to “the Big House in Margate,” which, according to the brochure, is a wonderful place next to an amusement park. Only the triplets still remain when a new Conservative government decides to discontinue the Sycamore program to cut costs. Soon the Prime Minister puts the well-meaning but clueless Minister of Loneliness in charge of rehoming the triplets. But where? That these children have been part of a creepy scientific experiment is obvious early on, but one shocking, horrifying surprise follows another in what is, at its most basic, a cat-and-mouse thriller. Meanwhile, Chidgey forces readers to delve into moral questions concerning science (and by extension, technology), pragmatism, personal responsibility, and institutional evil. Then there’s the novel’s unavoidable, disquieting contemplation of just who is given equal right in any given society (including ours). Chidgey, a New Zealander, borrows elements from Philip Roth’sThe Plot Against America and Kazuo Ishiguro’sNever Let Me Go, but the character Vincent most resembles is Pinocchio. Broad themes and issues become deeply personal as his coming-of-age becomes a monumental struggle toward self-discovery.

Eloquent prose, rich characterizations, and knotty concepts—an emotional and intellectual tour de force.

Kirkus Reviews