The Silver Book

Like the script of an unwritten movie, voyeuristic, slick with 1970s decadence, glittering with shadows and unspoken sins, The Silver Book is lush, intense, wildly evocative; subtly freighted with emotional power and sensuality, it is simply their best book yet – Philip HoareThe Silver Book is an astounding work. It’s difficult to believe this isn’t an eyewitness account: the characters appear to live and breathe in actual time and we experience with them all the erotic tensions, as well as the tragedies, involved in their defiant pursuit of beauty. The world of Fellini and Pasolini is uncannily resurrected in this visionary narrative – Celia PaulTransporting, heartbreaking, beautiful. I did not want this story to end – Nigel SlaterBy taking us on set during the filming of two of the strangest movies ever made, Olivia Laing’s new novel makes us wonder all over again at how facts can be turned into fiction, then back once again into glittering and suggestive fact. A love story dedicated to cinema, to queerness, and to the alchemy of all good art – Neil BartlettSuch a haunting, sad but creatively thrilling tale, told with delicate economy – Neil TennantAn enthralling read. So many exquisite images conjured and a driving sense of political and emotional passion. I loved it – Maria Balshaw, Director of the TateLaing’s gift for weaving big ideas together with lyrical prose sets her alongside the likes of Arundhati Roy, John Berger and James Baldwin. In other words, she is among the most significant voices of our time * Financial Times *Laing belongs in an as-yet-undefined and perhaps undefinable class of prose artists who blend feeling and analysis, speculation and research, wit and instruction as they track down the elusive patterns and inescapable contradictions of modern experience * New York Times *I am in awe of Olivia Laing’s insights, braininess, and that something that feels like recklessness until it lands – Peter CareySimply one of our most exciting writers * Observer *

Olivia Laing is an author and critic who has written eight books, including The Lonely City, Everybody: A Book About Freedom, and the Sunday Times number one bestseller The Garden Against Time. Laing’s first novel, Crudo, won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and in 2018 they were awarded the Windham-Campbell Prize for non-fiction. Their books have been translated into 21 languages.