Hutchinson Heinemann signs Fitton’s ‘moving’ memoir of solitude in exclusive submission

Hutchinson Heinemann has signed Hermit: A Memoir of Finding Freedom in a Wild Place by writer and producer Jade Angeles Fitton.

Editorial director for non-fiction Zennor Compton acquired world rights in an exclusive submission from Max Edwards at Aevitas Creative Management.

The book will be published on 18th May 2023 in hardback and e-book, with a simultaneous audiobook publication from Penguin Random House Audio.

Hermit recounts how years in a destructive relationship to a former partner leaves Fitton numbed and her life unravelling. Uncertain of her future, she seeks solace in complete solitude. Slowly, the synopsis continues, with the help of Devon’s salted cliffs and damp forested footpaths, Jade comes back to herself and to life discovering the power of being alone. Sometimes running away from your problems is the answer.

As she re-emerges, Fitton considers what it means to live alone. Through conversations with other hermits across the world, Fitton sheds light on an extraordinary and misunderstood way of living which has survived into the 21st century – from monks to hikikomori, and the often-ignored female hermit.

In the book, she questions whether hermetic living is possible in an era of constant communication and increased housing costs as she finds herself financially unstable and itinerant. She realises that home doesn’t exist within walls, but within the landscape of her childhood home county.

Fitton, a journalist, producer and writer whose journalism has appeared in the Guardian, Independent, Financial Times, Vogue, Times Literary Supplement, New Statesman, Literary Review and whose poetry has been published in a number of magazines including the Moth, said: “Escapism gets a bad rap.

“My experience as a hermit – a loner, a recluse – has been life-changing and I want to encourage others to see solitude, particularly female solitude, in a more positive light: one that has the potential to connect us more intimately with the natural world, to heal our past life and enhance our future.

“It’s an honour pulled straight from my wildest dreams to be publishing my first book with Heinemann Hutchinson. I am so grateful to the whole team, in particular to Zennor Compton, my editor, who has guided me through this with sensitivity and humour and encouraged me to keep creeping out of my shell. Although I felt I had a story to tell, I doubted I would ever tell it, and I probably never would have, were it not for my wonderful agent, Max Edwards.”

Compton said: “I’m so pleased to be publishing Hermit, a passionate memoir about the push and pull of solitude and society. It is also a book about trauma and dissociation, power, home and love, all set in the depths of Devon, a setting which Jade Angeles Fitton paints exquisitely. Jade is an exciting new talent and I know readers will fall in love with this book from the very first page, just as I did.”