• Cover Endorsements
  • Opening of the novel
  • Commentary
  • Excerpts
  • Reviews
  • Miscellaneous

 Zade

(Saqi Books, 2004)

'Inventive and playful by turns, Heather Reyes writes with tremendous verve and wit.'  Jill Dawson

'A wonderful first novel.' Martina Cole

'A tender, profound, playful novel. Refreshingly experimental and a delicious hymn to literature.' Moniza Alvi

* * *

OPENING OF THE NOVEL

In films it's usually through the temple. Or the mouth.

   Transfer the gun to the right hand. Release the safety catch.

   ... Come on ... just do it ...

   Unfamiliar smell of metal and grease. The taste ...

   No - not the mouth. Pin and ivory cave of words and breathing.

   Straight through the brain - through the grey mess.

   Arm trembling. raising it. So heavy. Left hand pulls back the hood. Sudden chill air around the ears and the back of the neck. Shiver. Trying to hold steady. The circle of metal against the skin of the temple where that little blue vein trembles just below the surface - level with the right eye. 

   Curve of the trigger against the finger. Shaking ...                                                      

   Sense of unreality about it all. Life - death -

   Oh, this living business ... this dying business ... Just get it over with. Now -

COMMENTARY

Zade starts with a bang - literally. The blast of blinding light that accompanies the pulling of the trigger. [TO BE ADDED]

EXCERPTS

[TO BE ADDED]

REVIEWS

'Every once in a while, a first novel comes along that seems as accomplished as if its writer had long been a member of literature's oantheon. Here, with wit an imagination, comes alive the story of a young woman, Zade, who experiences a sort of compressed cataclysm of love and loss, but ultimately finds consolation via the artistic souls at Pere Lachaise Cemetery. Are they figments of here imagination, or are they real? Indeed, this communion with the ghosts of Paris past - Moliere, Wilde, Apollinaire, Proust, Piaf, Gertrude Stein - seems so "real" it's as though they were alive, rendering in flesh and bone the essence of what art has to offer ... to life. This is a Paris book which isn't about living in Paris, but focuses on what the spirit of Paris is, on its timeless wisdom, and ultimately its uplifting and fathomless sources of inspiration.' Marc Heberden, parisvoice, March 2004

[MORE TO BE ADDED]

MISCELLANEOUS

Zade was on the 2006 longlist of twelve for the Prince Maurice Prize, awarded in alternate years to French and English writers (www.princemaurice.com). The list included Zadie Smith, Joanna Briscoe, Rachel Cusk, Clare Sambrook, and Julian Fellowes. The prize is specifically for novels which 'examine love between people in any of its myriad forms'. The judges included Helen Dunmore (for whom Zade made the shortlist of three), Mark Lawson, Blake Morrison, and Jacqueline Wilson.

 Zade was also shortlisted (a little less glamorously!) for Bedfordshire Libraries' 'Book of the Year'.