{"product_id":"the-hill","title":"The Hill","description":"\n\u003ctable align=\"center\" border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"2\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\"\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd class=\"productDetailSmallElements\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eBiographical Note\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eHarriet Clark\u003c\/b\u003e has received fellowships from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and the Wallace Stegner program. She was a Jones Lecturer in Creative Writing at Stanford University and is the winner of the 2023 \n\u003ci\u003eParis Review\u003c\/i\u003e's Plimpton Prize for her short story \"Descent.\" \n\u003ci\u003eThe Hill\u003c\/i\u003e is her debut novel.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Quotes\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Are there examples of this kind of bildungsroman? A coming-of-age novel alert to the terror of the arbitrary, restless with the very terms of our earthly existence? \u003cb\u003eIn our era, two come to mind: Marilynne Robinson's \u003ci\u003eHousekeeping\u003c\/i\u003e and Kazuo Ishiguro's \u003ci\u003eNever Let Me Go \u003c\/i\u003e. . . Now a third joins their company, Harriet Clark's superb first novel, \u003ci\u003eThe Hill\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e. . . It is a measure of this novel's \u003cb\u003elucidity, its honesty and unillusioned wit\u003c\/b\u003e, that Suzanna's vision of this crowded heaven, shared with her grandmother, is not allowed to rest on its lyrical laurels. 'Like hell, ' Sylvie comments. Or, at least, like prison.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e--James Wood, \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Breathtaking . . . \n\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Hill\u003c\/i\u003e might be dreamlike, but it's far from nightmarish, instead charged with a hushed quality of distillation, lustrous with the obscure meaning of familial romance, plus the sense--common to dreams--of promising some final understanding that can be carried into waking life \u003c\/b\u003e. . . Childhood, much like dreams, is difficult to write about without succumbing to vagueness and sentimentality; there's also the unfortunate way it means so much more to the person who experienced it than to anyone else. There are none of those pitfalls here. \n\u003cb\u003eClark renders Suzanna's state of unknowing exquisitely\u003c\/b\u003e.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--Hermione Hoby, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Reading the book, I found myself being lulled into a sense of connection to the prison itself, its eternal promise of containment . . . But like all good literature, something sneaks up on you . . . \n\u003cb\u003eTo be gently rocked into a state of complacency around the existence of mass incarceration is an experience fundamental to being an American . . . Clark's storytelling awakens us to that same knowledge through a child's bewildered and indifferent acceptance of her fate\u003c\/b\u003e.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--Hannah Kingsley-Ma, \u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"With \n\u003cb\u003ehaunting moral clarity\u003c\/b\u003e, \n\u003ci\u003eThe Hill\u003c\/i\u003e transforms a single prison into a vast moral landscape. Harriet Clark captures the strange, enduring gravity of incarceration--the way it orders time, memory, and love long after a visit between a mother and child ends, long after the prison gates close. This is a novel about what cannot be undone, and about the fragile acts of care that persist nonetheless. It is both \n\u003cb\u003eintimate and expansive, a work that lingers in my mind as a question: what does it mean to remain faithful to one another in a world determined to keep us apart?\u003c\/b\u003e\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--Michelle Alexander, author of \u003ci\u003eThe New Jim Crow\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"[A] beautiful debut . . . A tour de force.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e (starred review)\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"A debut reminiscent of Marilynne Robinson's \n\u003ci\u003eHousekeeping\u003c\/i\u003e.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--Jeffrey Eugenides \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\" \n\u003ci\u003eThe Hill \u003c\/i\u003eis \n\u003cb\u003etragic, comic, gorgeously written\u003c\/b\u003e, \n\u003cb\u003eand overflowing with life\u003c\/b\u003e; \n\u003cb\u003eeverything you hope a novel will be when you read its opening line\u003c\/b\u003e. It's a rare experience when a novel not only fulfills those hopes, but transcends them. The fact that this is Harriet Clark's first novel is not only astonishing, it speaks to the greatest hope of all--that \n\u003cb\u003ethe future of American literature is in exceptional, inspired hands\u003c\/b\u003e.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--Michael Cunningham, author of \u003ci\u003eDay\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\"A masterful meditation on discipline, mothering, revolutionary idealism, and forgiveness, \n\u003ci\u003eThe Hill \u003c\/i\u003eis also \n\u003cb\u003ea wry and intensely gripping story of a tender-souled girl making sense of the punishing world she's inherited\u003c\/b\u003e. The writing is \n\u003cb\u003eso clear, lovely, and lonely--so gently philosophical\u003c\/b\u003e--that when I got to the final line, I went back and began again, just to stay inside.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--Justin Torres, author of \u003ci\u003eBlackouts\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\"Harriet Clark's \n\u003ci\u003eThe Hill\u003c\/i\u003e orbits the endurance that attends faith and the daily, hourly, micro resiliencies which compose and conduct grace. Suzanna's visionary constancy--despite a phalanx of actors, human and institutional, conspiring against it--felt to me \n\u003cb\u003eas morally urgent as anything in Dostoevsky\u003c\/b\u003e. \n\u003cb\u003eHow is it possible for a book with such manifest stakes to also be this funny? This propulsive?\u003c\/b\u003e I don't know how Clark wrote \n\u003ci\u003eThe Hill\u003c\/i\u003e, but I'm glad she did. \n\u003cb\u003eI'll be re-reading it for the rest of my life\u003c\/b\u003e.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--Kaveh Akbar, author of \u003ci\u003eMartyr!\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\"The story of two extraordinary minds, growing up in prison together. \n\u003ci\u003eThe Hill\u003c\/i\u003e took two decades to write, and I really did have the sense that the insights of each of those years had culminated in a vantage point that feels totally new. \n\u003cb\u003eI can't stop thinking about it and demanding that everyone read it\u003c\/b\u003e.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--Rachel Aviv, author of \u003ci\u003eStrangers to Ourselves\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\" \n\u003ci\u003eThe Hill \u003c\/i\u003eis a tenderly Kafkaesque novel about the cruelties and absurdities of incarceration. \n\u003cb\u003eA book of tremendous depth and feeling\u003c\/b\u003e that manages to be \n\u003cb\u003eequal parts comedy of coming of age and Sebaldian rumination\u003c\/b\u003e. \n\u003ci\u003eLady Bird \u003c\/i\u003emeets \n\u003ci\u003eThe Emigrants\u003c\/i\u003e. \n\u003cb\u003eI loved it.\u003c\/b\u003e\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--Brandon Taylor, author of \u003ci\u003eMinor Black Figures\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\"One of the most beautiful books I have ever read.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--Tara Westover, author of \u003ci\u003eEducated\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\"A profound, funny, and utterly original excavation of a young girl's consciousness.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--Sarah Schulman, author of \u003ci\u003eLet the Record Show\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\"This book is a joy to read: the writing itself is wonderful but the conception is magical.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--Vivian Gornick\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher Marketing\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAfter her mother is sentenced to life in a hilltop prison, Suzanna vows to return to the hill forever. An unexpectedly funny and deeply moving novel about the many ways we punish and return to each other.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSuzanna Klein was a baby when her mother got up early one morning to rob a bank with a group of fellow radicals. Now, every Saturday, Suzanna lines up at the prison gates among the other children, each dressed as if for celebration. Inside there is a nursery and a cemetery; there are watchful guards and distractable nuns; there are women counting down to release and women like Suzanna's mother, who will never be released. \n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAt home, Suzanna is raised by her grandmother, who is entirely unforgiving of her daughter's crime and refuses to visit the prison. Surrounding Suzanna are her grandmother's friends, who know one another from their years in the Communist Party and still spend extended cocktail hours debating the Hitler-Stalin pact. Though these women once insisted on changing the world, they are torn between teaching Suzanna how the world works and shielding her from it. \n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSuzanna vows to return to the prison forever but her mother wants her to be free. Harriet Clark's \n\u003ci\u003eThe Hill\u003c\/i\u003e is an incandescent novel of a child growing up between worlds, the last of three generations whose fates have been tied to punishment. It is the tale of a family broken apart by the desire for change, told with irreverent wisdom and visionary force. \n\u003ci\u003eThe Hill\u003c\/i\u003e brings new music to American fiction. \n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Citations:\u003c\/strong\u003e\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"italic\"\u003eBooklist\u003c\/span\u003e 04\/01\/2026 (EAN 9780374614546, Hardcover)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"italic\"\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/span\u003e 03\/09\/2026 (EAN 9780374614546, Hardcover) - *Starred Review\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"italic\"\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/span\u003e 04\/01\/2026 (EAN 9780374614546, Hardcover)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eContributor Bio:\u003c\/strong\u003eClark, Harriet\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eHarriet Clark\u003c\/b\u003e is the winner of \n\u003ci\u003eThe Paris Review's\u003c\/i\u003e Plimpton Prize for her short story, \"Descent,\" and has received fellowships from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and the Wallace Stegner Program. \n\u003ci\u003eThe Hill\u003c\/i\u003e is her debut novel.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n","brand":"Farrar, Straus and Giroux","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51496248901910,"sku":"9780374614546","price":33.6,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0857\/9910\/8886\/files\/9780374614546.jpg?v=1783058201","url":"https:\/\/lusper.myshopify.com\/products\/the-hill","provider":"Lusperbooks","version":"1.0","type":"link"}