Leaving Home

‘His distillation of the fear and powerlessness of childhood is so deeply moving and beautifully drawn … The most tender, transporting, creative and beautifully written tale I have read all year. In Leaving Home, Mark Haddon turns words, images and his trademark empathy upon himself to conjure all the repressed emotion, strained relationships, shyness, humour and orange formica of his childhood in 1970s provincial England. Simply glorious, from start to finish’ * Rachel Clarke, author of The Story of a Heart *‘I loved this funny, melancholy and arrestingly original memoir of an artist’s coming into being. It also made me quite badly want a Walnut Whip’ * Sarah Perry, author of Enlightenment *

Mark Haddon is a writer and artist. His bestselling novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2003) won seventeen literary prizes, was translated into 36 languages, and went on to become an award-winning stage adaptation by Simon Stephens. His most recent works of fiction include a novel, The Porpoise (2019), and a collection of fables and stories, Dogs and Monsters (2024).