Spend an evening with authors Jo Hamya and Chloe Ashby, who will be discussing Jo's brand new novel The Hypocrite. Refreshments are provided.
About the book
What happens when we stop idolising the generations above us? Stop idolising our own parents?
What happens when we become frightened of the generations below us? Frightened of our own children?
The Aeolian islands, 2010. Sophia, on the cusp of adulthood, spends a long hot summer with her father in Sicily. There she falls in love for the first time. There she works as her father's amanuensis, typing the novel he dictates, a story about sex and gender divides. There, their relationship fractures.
London, Summer 2020. Sophia's father, a 61-year-old novelist who does not feel himself to be a bad or outdated person sits in a large theatre, surrounded by strangers, watching his daughter's first play. A play that takes that Sicilian holiday is its subject. A play that will force him to watch his purported crimes play out in front of him.
About the author
Jo Hamya is a writer and academic based in London. She has written for the New York Times, the Financial Times, and the Booker Prize, where she has also worked on film projects alongside Ben Okri, Sarah Waters, and Penelope Lively among others. Her debut novel Three Rooms (2021), was published by Jonathan Cape and Mariner books. A second novel will be published by Weidenfeld and Nicholson and Pantheon Books in 2024. She is currently completing a doctorate on literary sociology and the internet at King’s College London.
About the host
Chloë Ashby is an author and award-winning arts critic. She has written texts for exhibitions and artist catalogues, and spoken at many bookshops, literary festivals and museums. Her first novel, Wet Paint, was published by Trapeze, an imprint of Orion, in April 2022. Her second novel, Second Self, followed in July 2023.
