"This compassionate, complex novel is a remarkable literary riff on the inner-life of mathematician and cryptologist Alan Turing, who was subjected to chemical castration."
Subtle, experimental and moving, this novel invites multiple readings. Based on Alan Turing’s horrendous experiences as a gay man in early 1950s England, it’s narrated by Alec Pryor, a mathematician and former Bletchley Park cryptographer who’s been convicted of gross indecency after meeting young man Cyril at a fairground.
Opting for chemical hormone injections rather than a prison sentence, this novel is Alec’s piercing, heartbreaking journal. His depiction of the fairground at which he meets Cyril is acutely poignant: “It is an erotic place, the fair. Everything about it - the mushrooming appearance, the concentration of energy, the ambush and occupation of common land…This is your chance, it says.
Take it!” But for Alec, an erotically charged encounter at the fair leads to his undoing. After enduring chemical castration, Alec’s brilliant mind and deep heart – his very being – unravel. He is not who he was: “When I began to look better, like my old self, after the changing treatment stopped, I seemed to disappear from the inside. I felt as if I’d been replaced.”
Necessitating reader devotion and careful consideration of every perfectly placed word, this is a piercingly affecting intellectual and emotional tour de force.
Winner of the 2019 Wellcome Book PrizeWinner of the 2019 Republic of Consciousness PrizeShortlisted for the 2018 Goldsmiths PrizeShortlisted for the 2019 James Tait Black PrizeLonglisted for the 2019 Rathbones Folio PrizeTaking its cue from the arrest and legally enforced chemical castration of the mathematician Alan Turing, Murmur is the account of a man who responds to intolerable physical and mental stress with love, honour and a rigorous, unsentimental curiosity about the ways in which we perceive ourselves and the world.
| Primary Genre | Historical Fiction |
| Other Genres: |
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Winner of the 2019 Wellcome Book PrizeWinner of the 2019 Republic of Consciousness PrizeShortlisted for the 2018 Goldsmiths PrizeShortlisted for the 2019 James Tait Black PrizeLonglisted for the 2019 Rathbones Folio PrizeTaking its cue from the arrest and legally enforced chemical castration of the mathematician Alan Turing, Murmur is the account of a man who responds to intolerable physical and mental stress with love, honour and a rigorous, unsentimental curiosity about the ways in which we perceive ourselves and the world. Formally audacious, daring in its intellectual inquiry and unwaveringly humane, Will Eaves's Murmur is a rare achievement.
Murmur features in the following genres: Historical Fiction, Modern and Contemporary Fiction, Fiction, General Fiction
Paperback, Ebook. £6.39. Digital. Available Immediately. Country restrictions apply..
Murmur was written by Will Eaves and published by Canongate Books
£6.39. Digital. Available Immediately. Country restrictions apply..
