Join Chris Barkley, on Wednesday 6th August at 7pm, as he chats to Jacob Smith about his exceptional debut novel The Man on the Endless Stair.
When troubled but talented young author Euan meets decorated novelist Malcolm Furnivall, he feels his luck has finally changed. Malcolm takes Euan as a protégé, vouching for him in the rarefied literary scene in the 1950s. But lately, Malcolm has not been himself. Consumed by his work, he cuts an increasingly isolated figure and has become convinced that something terrible will befall him. He summons his loved ones to his secluded island in the Hebrides and – to everyone's surprise – entrusts Euan with the task of completing his masterpiece.
Malcolm's suspicions soon prove well-founded; he is discovered brutally murdered in his study, and his invaluable unfinished novel has vanished. Cut off from the mainland, with the killer on the loose and the island's inhabitants circling, Euan feels both his mentor's legacy and his only chance at greatness slipping away. He must venture deep into Malcolm's labyrinthine mansion to find the manuscript before it falls into the wrong hands.
But what he doesn't yet know is that the closer he comes to solving the mystery, the tighter he will bind himself to a fate sealed in time . . .
Chris Barkley was appointed Writer in Residence by the Edinburgh Book Festival in 2022. He won the Oxford University Kellogg Writing Competition in 2021, as well as the Bedford International Writing Prize. He has been shortlisted for the Cambridge Short Story Prize and has had prose published in TSS, National Flash Fiction, Darling Axe, and the Writers of the Future 35th anthology. He lives in Edinburgh.
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Doors: 6.30pm, event starts: 7pm, please arrive early to secure a good seat.
Tickets are £3 and there is a Ticket & Book option which includes a signed copy of The Man on the Endless Stair by Chris Barkley.
The bookshop has level access, events are seated and speakers use microphones. If you have any concerns about accessibility, please do get in touch and we will do our best to accommodate your needs.
Refunds are reviewed on a case-by-case basis, we are unable to offer a refund after the event.
For more information or if you would like a signed copy because you can't make it to the event, please contact the Blackwell's events team on 0131 622 8222 or matthew.land@waterstones.com
