We are delighted that CASE STUDY by Graeme Macrae Burnet has been longlisted for the Booker Prize 2022. This is the second time Graeme has been nominated for the prize, with his earlier novel HIS BLOODY PROJECT shortlisted in 2016, when it became the top-selling shortlisted title ahead of the award.
CASE STUDY, described as ‘a novel of mind-bending brilliance’ by Hannah Kent, was first published in the UK by Saraband in October 2021, with the paperback following on 14 April 2022. Bolinda publish the audio edition. CASE STUDY has already been the recipient of numerous accolades, including being chosen as a Book of the Year in 2021 by The Spectator, The Scotsman and Waterstones and being picked as one of Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s favourite books of the year too. This year it has been longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize 2022 and shortlisted for the Ned Kelly Award in Australia, where Text published in October 2021. Rights have been sold in ten further territories, with the most recent deal being North American rights acquired by Biblioasis — more news on this to follow shortly.
Also longlisted are: Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo, Trust by Hernan Diaz, The Trees by Percival Everett, Booth by Karen Joy Fowler, Treacle Walker by Alan Garner, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka, Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan, The Colony by Audrey Magee, Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer, Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley, After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz and Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout. Eight of thirteen titles in this year's ‘Booker Dozen’ are from independent publishers.
The Booker Prize is one the world’s leading prizes for fiction, and the winner of the £50,000 award is selected from all sustained works of fiction published in the UK and Ireland in the English language, regardless of the origin of the author. The shortlist will be unveiled on 6 September at the Serpentine Gallery, and the winner will be announced at the Roundhouse in London on 17 October.
Graeme Macrae Burnet says: ‘I could not be more thrilled that CASE STUDY has made it to the Booker longlist. For your work to be deemed worthy of being in the running for such a prize is incredibly gratifying. And all the more so to do it in partnership with the brilliant Saraband Books.’
Saraband Publisher Sara Hunt says: ‘I am absolutely delighted to see CASE STUDY amongst the “Booker Dozen”. Graeme has an uncommon skill for packing literary excellence and intelligent, surprising subject matter inside a true page-turner. CASE STUDY is a fantastic novel — playful, clever, stylish and witty, with emotional depth, and utterly captivating. I am so thrilled the judges have selected it for this prestigious longlist, and of course very happy for Graeme.’
Isobel Dixon, Graeme’s agent at Blake Friedmann, says: ‘Graeme Macrae Burnet’s dazzling and deviously clever CASE STUDY has delighted so many readers around the world already and it’s a real joy to see the Booker judges nominate it for this year’s longlist. I’m so thrilled for Graeme and for Saraband, who have published with such passion, and excited that the prize will help introduce Graeme’s brilliant work to an even wider readership.’
CASE STUDY by Graeme Macrae Burnet
I have decided to write down everything that happens, because I feel, I suppose, I may be putting myself in danger.
London, 1965. An unworldly young woman suspects charismatic psychotherapist Collins Braithwaite of involvement in a death in her family. Determined to find out more, she becomes a client of his under a false identity. But she soon finds herself drawn into a world in which she can no longer be certain of anything.
In CASE STUDY, Graeme Macrae Burnet presents both sides: the woman’s notes and the life of Collins Braithwaite. The result is a dazzling, page-turning and wickedly humorous meditation on the nature of sanity, identity and truth itself, by one of the most inventive novelists writing today.
Praise for CASE STUDY:
‘Consistently inventive, caustically funny and surprisingly moving, this is one of the finest novels of the year.’ — Christian House, Financial Times
‘It’s a book that is enormous fun to read, a mystery and a psychological drama wrapped up in one. Buoyed by the evident pleasure Macrae Burnet takes in spinning such a tightly knit tale — the author’s note at the end is magnificent — CASE STUDY is a triumph, and ought to give Saraband another success story.’ — Alex Preston, Guardian, ‘Book of the Day’
‘Fun and funny, sly and serious, a beguiling literary game that manages to say more about the nature of the self than any number of more self-consciously solemn works.’ — David Szalay
‘Brilliant, bamboozling . . . In addition to CASE STUDY’s ludic pleasures, Burnet captures his characters’ voices so brilliantly that what might have been just an intellectual game feels burstingly alive and engaging.’ — Jake Kerridge, 5-star review, Sunday Telegraph
‘What’s real and what’s not is beside the point in this skilful portrait of a disturbed woman and her encounters with an experimental 1960s psychotherapist . . . Both strands quickly become compelling . . . I was hooked like a fish.’ — Leyla Sanai, The Spectator
‘This is a novel which, like Macrae Burnet’s previous ones, holds the attention, develops an insidious narrative interest, and poses questions about the nature of the self and the authenticity of identity . . . As in his other novels, Macrae Burnet writes with an admirable lucidity, at the same time being able to probe and shed light on the dark places of the mind. Writing in a prose that is spare, deadpan and yet alive, he poses questions about the nature and perception of what we choose to call reality. He is an uncommonly interesting and satisfying novelist.’ — Allan Massie, The Scotsman
About Graeme Macrae Burnet
Graeme Macrae Burnet was brought up Kilmarnock, Ayrshire and now lives in Glasgow. He has also lived in the Czech Republic, France, Portugal and London. He has appeared at festivals and events in Australia, New Zealand, the US, Russia, Estonia, Macau, Ireland, Germany and France, as well as in the UK. He has also been shortlisted for European and American literary awards.
His first novel, THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ADÈLE BEDEAU (Contraband, 2014), received a New Writer’s Award from the Scottish Book Trust and was longlisted for the Waverton Good Read Award. A second Inspector Gorski novel, THE ACCIDENT ON THE A35, was published in 2017, the year he won Author of the Year for the Sunday Herald Culture Awards.
HIS BLOODY PROJECT (Contraband, 2015) won the Saltire Society Fiction Book of the Year Award, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the LA Times Book Awards. It has been published to great acclaim around the world and film rights have been optioned by Synchronicity.
His latest novel CASE STUDY is longlisted for the Booker Prize and the Gordon Burn Prize in the UK and shortlisted for the Australian Ned Kelly Award for International Crime Fiction 2022.
Follow Graeme on Twitter
