Atlantic to publish Kerry Andrew’s moving “Sarah Moss meets The Last Of Us” novel Spring 2024

Atlantic Fiction Publishing Director James Roxburgh has bought UK and Commonwealth rights (excluding Canada and translation) in Kerry Andrew’s We Are Together Because from Jessica Woollard at David Higham Associates. We Are Together Because will be published in hardback, trade paperback and eBook in Spring 2024.

Kerry Andrew is a London-based musician and author. They are the acclaimed author of Swansong (2018) and Skin (2021), and their short fiction has been shortlisted twice for BBC National Short Story Award and has been performed on BBC Radio Four. They are also the winner of four British Composer Awards.

The beautifully observed human dynamics of Sarah Moss meets the emo-apocalypse of The Last of Us, a gripping, moving novel about siblings, sex and the end of the world.

Luke, Connor, Thea and Violet spend their first holiday together alone in their father’s house in France. The boys don’t really know him – he left their mother when she was still pregnant with Connor, getting together with the girls’ mother soon afterwards – and they don’t really know their half-sisters, either. Luke, the eldest and most easy going of the four, is keen to bring a new shape to their overlapping, unconventional family; Connor and Thea, born just six months apart but a world of difference between them, are attracted to each other, something they try not to acknowledge but which keeps pushing its way to the surface; Violet, the youngest, is trying to figure some things out about herself, and trying desperately to forget others.

Sex, in its multiple pleasurable divergences and forms, disturbances and abuses, is on the minds of all of the siblings during the hot, lethargic summer days next to the pool. Meanwhile the land is responding and reacting to something inexplicable and eerie. There is a sound, a strong buzzing tonal undercurrent that only Connor can hear, and when Violet one night sees a plane light abruptly drop and disappear in the night sky, it signals the unsettling beginning of something that threatens so much more than their turbulent holiday…

James Roxburgh says,

‘I really love this. It has textures of Rumaan Alam’s Leave the World Behind or Emily St John Mandel’s Station Eleven, but it is its own gorgeous, clever, thrilling thing. It’s a novel of real sophistication, of considerable power and of unfolding revelation, one that starts as a sensual summer drama and very quickly becomes about our own survival. In an industry in which we all pretend to read books in a single sitting, this really is a book that I read in a single sitting, and I’m thrilled to bring it and Kerry to Atlantic Fiction.’

Kerry Andrew says,

‘I’m delighted to be working with James and the passionate, dedicated team at Atlantic Fiction. We Are Together Because brings together long-time preoccupations of mine: uncomfortable family dynamics, listening and hearing, and how we cope in the face of great loss. It’s set in an intense, increasingly sun-seared corner of France, a place that has settled itself in my heart. I can’t wait to introduce my four complicated siblings – Luke, Connor, Thea and Violet, whom I’ve grown to love – to the world!’

Jessica Woollard says,

‘Kerry Andrew is an enormously talented human being with multiple strings to their bow and great range as a writer. We Are Together Because is an emotionally powerful and hugely entertaining novel that really showcases that talent and feels absolutely on message. I know that James and the team at Atlantic Fiction will do a superb job of bringing it to a wide readership.’