Author(s): Iain Reid

Fiction | Mel M's Book Talkers

Penny, an artist, has lived in the same apartment for decades, surrounded by the artifacts and keepsakes of her long life. She is resigned to the mundane rituals of old age, until things start to slip. Before her longtime partner passed away years earlier, provisions were made, unbeknownst to her, for a room in a unique long-term care residence, where Penny finds herself after one too many “incidents.” Initially, surrounded by peers, conversing, eating, sleeping, looking out at the beautiful woods that surround the house, all is well. She even begins to paint again. But as the days start to blur together, Penny – with a growing sense of unrest and distrust – starts to lose her grip on the passage of time and on her place in the world. Is she succumbing to the subtly destructive effects of aging, or is she an unknowing participant in something more unsettling? At once compassionate and uncanny, told in spare, hypnotic prose, Iain Reid’s genre-defying third novel explores questions of conformity, art, productivity, relationships, and what, ultimately, it means to grow old. ‘I loved this book and couldn't put it down – a deeply gripping, surreal and wonderfully mysterious novel. Not only has Reid given us a brilliant page turner, but a profoundly moving meditation on life and art, death and infinity. Reid is a master’ Mona Awad, author 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl and All's Well

CONSTANT READER STAFF REVIEW: MEL M

After reading Reid’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things and Foe essentially back to back (both of which have been adapted into films) and enjoying them very much, I knew I’d become a follower of Iain Reid’s work. His sentences are spare, but by the end of his novels it’s as if a sleight of hand has been performed and you’re left going “wait, what?!” (In the best way).

We Spread is about Penny, a switched-on elderly widow who has a fall in the apartment she’s lived in for 50 years and promptly finds herself taken to a mysterious and isolated aged care facility.  After resisting her relocation, Penny initially finds she is feeling very well indeed – until she starts to lose time and notice her thoughts blending with those of the other inhabitants’.

Unexpectedly beautiful, this is a taut and affecting horror novel that speaks to the ways we overvalue productivity and fear ageing as a culture, and does so in a graceful and compassionate way.

Read this if you enjoy literary thrillers or horror done with a fine, deft touch.