The End of Nightwork

A novel rich in provocative and timely ideas, yet seductively readable… There’s a rare originality here, and a willingness to take risks, that promises great things * Guardian *This debut novel glints with so many eye-catchingly surreal ideas - taking in invented historical figures, arcane medicine, absurdist politics, and vast conspiracies… Thoughtful, ambitious * Sunday Times *Rapturous, disruptive and quietly, complexly devastating, The End of Nightwork combines satire, elegy and fantastic portraiture to thrilling effect. A myriad of tender, terrifying cataclysms told with wit and true originality. A reckoning – Eley Williams, author of Attrib. and The Liar’s DictionaryArtful and ambitious… This is a debut teeming with ideas: about the nature of time, about politics, history, intergenerational trauma and how society should be structured. The novel is doing a lot, and having fun while doing it * Financial Times *A terrifically sympathetic, richly peopled and often very funny novel of family life and generational conflict… It manages to touch on both timeless and pressing concerns with sensitivity and humour * TLS *A strange and wonderful debut. A meditation on history and a lovingly-drawn portrait of a marriage, Aidan Cottrell-Boyce’s novel goes straight to the anxious heart of our present, preapocalyptic moment with grace, wisdom, empathy and a boatload of brilliant one-liners – Paul Murray, author of Skippy DiesCottrell-Boyce’s assured debut is a wildly original story that considers everything we face in the modern age and then some – Debut Novelists You’ll Love in 2023 * Evening Standard *The End of Nightwork is a rare thing; a novel of ideas that also happens to be deeply moving. There is wit and erudition here, but never at the expense of the book’s abiding tenderness, insight and empathy – Keiran Goddard, author of HourglassA brilliant novel. Aidan Cottrell-Boyce writes with a sharp eye for humour and emotional resonance. This is a time-tumbling, unexpected and arresting novel of apocalypse, upheaval and familial love – Seán Hewitt, author of All Down Darkness WideA totally absorbing novel on family, its pathos and its mysteries, on the end of our worlds, great and small, on how time fails us, and we fail time, with superb workings of comedy and political insight. As odd as life and as compassionate and engaging as a reader could hope for – David Hayden, author of Darker With the Lights OnOne of the best debuts to appear in a long time * The Tablet *[A] clever, idiosyncratic debut… There are some affecting and well-observed scenes * Mail on Sunday *The sense of calamity, of impending doom, of turmoil both internal and external, all seem like Britain as it exists today – Best New Novelists of 2023 * Daily Telegraph *The End of Nightwork is a satisfyingly odd novel. It is both an urgent grappling with the frightening times we live in and a meditation on what Chaucer called “the woe that is in marriage” * I Paper *The End of Nightwork braids the domestic with the political, showing both in a state of collapse * Literary Review *A novel of ideas… its latter sections are thought-provoking and feature genuinely chilling moments * Press Association *There’s a lot going on in this ambitious and singular debut by Cottrell-Boyce… Timely ideas, and ideas about time, take the fore here… the novel’s human drama, [is] at times painfully acute * Daily Mail *A curious, demanding book that lingers in the mind * The Gloss *The End of Nightwork is a prescient book about an oncoming apocalypse but is also a moving love story – Christian Lisseman * Big Issue North *

Aidan Cottrell-Boyce was born in Liverpool in 1987. He completed his PhD at the Divinity Faculty of the University of Cambridge in 2018. During his doctoral studies he ran as a Parliamentary candidate for the Green Party. He is the author of two academic books: Jewish Christians in Puritan England (2020) and Israelism in Modern Britain (2021). His short fiction has appeared in The White Review and Granta. He currently works as a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at St Mary’s University in London.