Ten year wait for Zusak's next novel is over

Transworld is publishing a new literary novel from The Book Thief author Markus Zusak, which has been a decade in the making.

Bridge of Clay is described as "an epic portrait of a ramshackle family and the unburying of one boy’s tragic secret" and will be published this October.

Jane Lawson, editorial director, said it had been "absolutely worth the wait" following the original publication of The Book Thief in 2005. "Bridge of Clay is as original, ambitious and intensely moving as only Markus Zusak can be," she said.

Publishing with Doubleday in hardback on 11th October, Transworld said it hoped the book would be "one of the year’s literary events". 

Bill Scott-Kerr, publisher at Transworld, said: "Markus’ amazing storytelling ability and his innate artistry has long been a thing of wonder to me and the chance to make this magnificent novel, at once layered, subtle and exuberant, into one of the year’s literary events is one which all of us at Transworld are relishing."

The release for the book describes a family of five brothers, who live in "perfect squalor" in a house without grown-ups or rules, whose father who abandoned them is about to re-enter their lives. 

Its characters include: "Matthew, cynical, poetic; Rory, forever truanting; Henry, the money-spinner; and young Tommy, the pet collector who has colonized the house with dysfunctional pets, including Achilles the mule and Rosy the Border collie. And then there’s Clay, the quiet one, his whole young life haunted by an unspeakable act."

Zusak will be in the UK in late October to promote the book.