Elizabeth Lowry
The Chosen by Elizabeth Lowry, out now, is the author’s third novel.
It is shortlisted for the
Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2023.
Who Pays the Price of a
Writer’s Fame?
The Chosen
One Wednesday morning in November 1912 the ageing Thomas Hardy, entombed by paper and books and increasingly estranged from his wife Emma, finds her dying in her bedroom. Between his speaking to her and taking her in his arms, she has gone.
The day before, he and Emma had exchanged bitter words – leading Hardy to wonder whether all husbands and wives end up as enemies to each other. His family and Florence Dugdale, the much younger woman with whom he has been in a relationship, assume that he will be happy and relieved to be set free. But he is left shattered by this loss.
The Chosen Reviews
What people are saying
“Finely judged”
“Does art enhance life, or negate it? The painful question runs through Lowry’s portrait of Thomas Hardy, and produces a sombre, delicate novel, finely judged and full of insight”
Hilary Mantel
“Writes like a dream”
“Elizabeth Lowry writes like a dream; finely attuned to the hopes, desires and secret hauntings of her characters, she brings them to life like no other writer I know. Every new book from Lowry is a rare treat, best devoured slowly”
Marina Benjamin
“Shrewd and lyrical”
“In The Chosen, Lowry conjures the torments of a writer’s life wonderfully. It is full of understanding, shrewd and often lyrical – a thing of beauty and sadness”
Alison Light
The Chosen Extract
Dorset, 1912
He knows that he’s already lost. He is following a ghost.
He’s poised on the margins, on the verge of the solid world. When he can’t feel his body any more he turns away and looks down, from his haunted height, into the depths.