Half of the Human Race

2013 Longlist

Summer of 1911. The streets of London ring with cheers for a new king’s coronation and the cries of increasingly violent suffragette protests.

Connie Callaway, fired up by the possibilities of independence, wants more than the conventional comforts of marriage. Spirited and courageous, she is determined to fight for ‘the greatest cause the world has ever known’.

Will Maitland, the rising star of county cricket, is a man of traditional opinions. He is both intrigued and appalled by Connie’s outspokenness and her quest for self-fulfilment.

Buffeted and spun by choice and chance, their lives become inextricably entangled, even as the outbreak of war drives them further apart. This is a deeply affecting story of love against all the odds.

(From Publisher)

About the Author

Anthony Quinn was born in Liverpool in 1964. Since 1998 he has been the film critic of the Independent. His first novel The Rescue Man (2009) won the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award.

Librarians’ Comments

Half of the Human Race is powerful and touching, in Connie, Quinn has created a compelling heroine.

A masterful treatise on the different wars we wage and what is what is not cricket, both in hman relationships and the World at large. Quinn captures his chosen period really convincingly, with immaculately written prose. One of the absolute literary highlights of the year.