A Ladder to the Sky

John Boyne

£8.99

We send all orders via Royal Mail: within the UK, choose from 1st Class, 2nd Class or Special Delivery; for the rest of the world, International Standard or International Tracked. Delivery and packaging charges are calculated automatically at the checkout.

To collect orders in person from the Bookshop, choose Click and Collect at the checkout.


Transworld Publishers Ltd
21 February 2019
ISBN: 9781784161019
Paperback
448 pages

From the publisher

'A deliciously dark tale of ambition, seduction and literary theft . . . an ingeniously conceived novel that confirms Boyne as one of the most assured writers of his generation.' Hannah Beckerman, Observer

*

You've heard the old proverb about ambition, that it's like setting a ladder to the sky. It can lead to a long and painful fall.


If you look hard enough, you will find stories pretty much anywhere. They don't even have to be your own. Or so would-be-novelist Maurice Swift decides early on in his career.


A chance encounter in a Berlin hotel with celebrated author Erich Ackerman gives Maurice an opportunity. For Erich is lonely, and he has a story to tell; whether or not he should is another matter.


Once Maurice has made his name, he finds himself in need of a fresh idea. He doesn't care where he finds it, as long as it helps him rise to the top. Stories will make him famous, but they will also make him beg, borrow and steal. They may even make him do worse.


This is a novel about ambition.

*

'Maurice Swift, the novelist protagonist of John Boyne's A Ladder to the Sky, is a bookish version of Patricia Highsmith's psychopathic antihero Tom Ripley' The Times

'A dark morality tale in the mould of Patricia Highsmith . . . consistently intriguing' Daily Mail