Time Being

Synopsis

When Laura Cameron, a philosophy professor at a London university, is found dead in a bizarre echo of the Reeva Steenkamp case, the questions are myriad. Her friend and colleague, Esther Luck, is as shocked as everyone else.

But Esther knows more than she’s letting on. After two years battling ovarian cancer, her notions of what makes life worth living, of what her future holds, have changed utterly. Held in a tense web of intrigue between Laura’s widower Jack, her ex Michel, and her conventional family, Esther is given the chance of new life on borrowed time as the mystery of Laura’s death deepens.

What follows is an exploration of guilt, mortality, freedom, time and the brilliant and beautiful puzzle of being alive.

Praise for Previous Work

‘(On Jacob’s Advice) Intriguing … The narrative moves slowly and magnificently towards a series of crises.’ —TLS

‘(On Jacob’s Advice) Set against a backdrop of rising antisemitism and full of intellectual discourse, Cook’s second novel is a thoughtful paean to Paris.’ —Daily Mail

‘(On Jacob’s Advice) portrait of the middle-class, liberal man in 2015 as a kind of prelapsarian naif.’ —Literary Review

‘There’s an addictive charm … that gives a potency to this ambitious tale.’ —John Sunyer, Financial Times

‘Daring, moving, imaginative and, above all, funny, this is a great debut from a promising novelist.’ —Sunday Mirror

‘An exuberant, stealthily shocking debut … razor sharp.’ —Daily Mail

‘From the start of his journey to the amazing ending of his saga we follow with awe and trepidation his moral life as all around him (almost) everyone else shows the human condition at its worst. If there is any literary justice this should sell by the bucket load. Hope it does and we hear again from this terrific first time novelist!’ —Guardian Online