The Rehearsal

The debut novel from the Booker Prize–winning author of The Luminaries and Birnam Wood.

As a rumour spreads about a teacher sleeping with a student, a group of teenage girls are jolted into new awareness of their own vertiginous sexuality. Ripples move outward in unexpected directions: the saxophone teacher directs the girls in workshopping their desires, and the local drama school adapts the scandal for a show.

Every action is a performance, and every platform a stage. The boundaries between private and public begin to dissolve – or perhaps were never there.

Exhilarating and original, at once a tender evocation of its young protagonists and a shrewd exposé of emotional compromise. It reveals the singular daring that has defined Catton’s career.

'As debuts go, this one is astral – as well as teasing, intelligent and knowing.' —Tom Adair, The Scotsman

'The book of the year for me was without doubt , by the preternaturally gifted New Zealand author Eleanor Catton. Perverse, erotic, complex, funny, experimental, and written with the confidence and courage of a true artist.' —Paul Murray, author of The Bee Sting

'controlled, elegant and utterly readable, even at its most slippery.' —Adrian Turpin, The Financial Times