Where My Heart Used to Beat

2017 Longlist

On a small island off the south coast of France, Robert Hendricks – an English doctor who has seen the best and the worst the twentieth century had to offer – is forced to confront the events that made up his life. His host is Alexander Pereira, a man who seems to know more about his guest than Hendricks himself does.

The search for the past takes us through the war in Italy in 1944, a passionate love that seems to hold out hope, the great days of idealistic work in the 1960s and finally – unforgettably – back into the trenches of the Western Front.

This moving novel casts a long, baleful light over the century we have left behind but may never fully understand. Daring, ambitious and in the end profoundly moving, this is Faulks’s most remarkable book yet.

(from publisher)

About the Author

Bestselling author Sebastian Faulks is known for his daring, ambitious and profoundly moving historical novels. Birdsong, a novel of love and courage during the First World War, has been voted one of Britain’s most loved books. His books include A Possible Life, Human Traces, On Green Dolphin Street, Engleby, Birdsong and the number one bestseller A Week in December.

Librarian’s Comments

A gripping and thought-provoking literary equivalent of a symphony where several resonating themes form a perfect, self-contained whole.