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Paperback / ISBN-13: 9781844087181

Price: £9.99

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Now filmed as Obsession on Netflix – starring Richard Armitage and Charlie Murphy



The New York Times bestselling masterpiece – a daring look at the dangers of obsession and the depth of its shattering consequences

‘Damaged people are dangerous. They know they can survive.’

Damage is the gripping story of a man’s desperate obsession and scandalous love affair. He is a man who appears to have everything: wealth, a beautiful wife and children, and a prestigious political career in Parliament. But his life lacks passion, and his aching emptiness drives him to an all-consuming and ultimately catastrophic relationship with his son’s fiancée.

‘A taut, sinister tale of erotic obsession’ Vanity Fair

‘The effect is powerful: here is naked obsession, sulfurous, total, scarcely possible to live with’ Financial Times

‘The reader looks on with mingled shock and fascination. A tour de force’ New York Times

‘Unputdownable is here, for once, not hyperbolic’ Ruth Rendell

Damage is a masterpiece’ Washington Post

‘Passionate, elegant, ruthless’ Iris Murdoch

What's Inside

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Reviews

Next to the often-contrived twists and revelations of today's psychological suspense, Hart's spare tale of all-consuming obsession is refreshingly straightforward
Library Journal
Damage is a masterpiece
Washington Post
A taut, sinister tale of erotic obsession
Vanity Fair
To read this tale of mutual obsession is like being abducted. Josephine Hart has managed to create a portrait of psychological and erotic obsession that is so compelling as, for a brief moment, to suck all the oxygen out of the air
Los Angeles Times
This spare, dreamlike first novel comes festooned with blurbs from the likes of Ruth Rendell and Iris Murdoch, and no wonder, for it's an unforgettable tale of sexual obsession and its calamitous consequences... Elliptical, haunting, and altogether extraordinary
Kirkus
The reader looks on with mingled shock and fascination. A tour de force
New York Times
A passionate, elegant, ruthless story
Iris Murdoch
Josephine Hart's debut novel, Damage, was an instant success. She wrote this, a new introduction to the tale of erotic obsession, just before her death
Guardian
The effect is powerful: here is naked obsession, sulfurous, total, scarcely possible to live with
Financial Times
A remarkable first novel of awesome accomplishment and quite startling psychological insight... 'Un-put-downable' is here, for once, not hyperbolic
Ruth Rendell
The violent dreamscape of Damage stayed with me long after I closed the book. Did I dream it? Did I live it? My very uncertainty tells me I have read something rare
Erica Jong, author of Fear of Flying