Granta pre-empts Bernstein’s ‘bold’ second novel Study for Obedience

Sarah Bernstein’s “bold and accomplished” second novel, Study for Obedience, has been pre-empted by Granta.

Associate publishing director Jason Arthur acquired world rights in all languages from Harriet Moore at David Higham. Granta will publish Study for Obedience in hardback and e-book editions in July.

The synopsis reads: “A woman moves from the place of her birth to a remote northern country to be housekeeper to her brother, whose wife has just left him. The youngest child of many siblings—more than she cares to remember—from earliest childhood she has attended to their every desire, smoothed away the slightest discomfort with perfect obedience, with the highest degree of devotion. The country, it transpires, is the country of their family’s ancestors.

“Soon after she arrives, a series of unfortunate events occurs—collective bovine hysteria; the demise of a ewe and her nearly-born lamb; a local dog’s phantom pregnancy; the containment of domestic fowl; a potato blight. It becomes clear that the locals suspect her of wrongdoing. And however diligently and silently she toils in service of the community, still she feels their hostility growing, pressing at the edges of her brother’s property. And inside the house, although she tends to her brother and his home with the utmost care and attention, he too begins to fall ill."

Arthur said the book was “one of the most accomplished and original novels I’ve read in some time”.

’[It is] a bold, fresh and very exciting articulation of the unconscious, a vivid and extraordinary study of the human condition and a really sharp blast of original thinking. As compelling as it is unsettling, it explores questions of complicity, power and displacement and confirms Sarah as an author of exceptional skill and talent.”

Bernstein teaches modern and contemporary literature. Her first novel, The Coming Bad Days, was published by Daunt Books in 2021.