-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
A sweeping drama about the madness of war and the power of love that marks acclaimed novelist Sebastian Faulks's return, after twenty years, to the fictional territory of his #1 international bestseller Birdsong.
London, 1980. Robert Hendricks, an established psychiatrist and author, has so bottled up memories of his own wartime past that he is nearly sunk into a life of aloneness and depression. Out of the blue, a baffling letter arrives from one Dr. Alexander Pereira, a neurologist and a World War I veteran who claims to be an admirer of Robert's published work.
The letter brings Robert to the older man's home on a rocky, secluded island off the south of France, and into tempests of memories - his childhood as a fatherless English boy, the carnage he witnessed and the wound he can't remember receiving as a young officer in World War II, and, above all, the great, devastating love of his life, an Italian woman, "L," whom he met during the war.
As Robert's recollections pour forth, he's unsure whether they will lead to psychosis - or redemption. But Dr. Pereira knows. Profoundly affecting and masterfully told, Where My Heart Used to Beat sweeps through the 20th century, brilliantly interrogating the darkest corners of the human mind and bearing tender witness to the abiding strength of love.
"Starred Review. An absorbing look at the intimate connection between love, war, and memory." - Kirkus
"There's a lot to get through. Perhaps too much...Mood swings and tonal bumps are a hazard of fiction that aspires to be both literary and 'popular'. It's a frustration here, even when set beside the novel's strengths." - The Guardian (UK)
"It sometimes feels that there are too many strands – childhood, war, love life, psychiatry, neurology – for all of them to receive due diligence. Still, this is a profoundly moving novel." - The Independent (UK)
This information about Where My Heart Used to Beat was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Sebastian Faulks was born on 20 April 1953 and was educated at Wellington
College and Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He was the first literary editor of
The Independent and became deputy editor of the Independent on Sunday
before leaving in 1991 to concentrate on writing. He has been a columnist for
The Guardian (1992-8) and the Evening Standard (1997-9). He continues
to contribute articles and reviews to a number of newspapers and magazines. He
wrote and presented the Channel 4 Television series 'Churchill's Secret Army',
screened in 1999. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
His first novel, A Trick of the Light, was published in 1984. His other
novels include The Girl at the Lion d'Or (1989), set in France between
the First and Second ...
... Full Biography
Author Interview
Link to Sebastian Faulks's Website
If you liked Where My Heart Used to Beat, try these:
by Ian McEwan
Published 2023
From the best-selling author of Atonement and Saturday comes the epic and intimate story of one man's life across generations and historical upheavals. From the Suez Crisis to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the fall of the Berlin Wall to the current pandemic, Roland Baines sometimes rides with the tide of history, but more often struggles against it.
by James Salter
Published 2014
An extraordinary literary event, a major new novel by the PEN/Faulkner winner and acclaimed master: a sweeping, seductive, deeply moving story set in the years after World War II.
by Sebastian Faulks
Published 2013
From the critically acclaimed, bestselling author of Birdsong, new fiction about love and war—five transporting stories and five unforgettable lives, linked across centuries.
Read the best books first...
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Can you name the title?
Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
