The Hypocrite

Description

From a fiercely talented writer poised to be a new generation’s Rachel Cusk or Deborah Levy, a novel set between the London stage and Sicily, about a daughter who turns her novelist father’s fall from grace into a play, and a father who increasingly fears his precocious daughter’s voice.

August 2020. Sophia, a young playwright, awaits her father’s verdict on her new show. A famous author whose novels haven’t aged as gracefully into the modern era as he might hope, he is completely unaware that the play centers around a vacation the two took years earlier to an island off Sicily, where he dictated to her a new book. The play has been met with rave reviews but Sophia’s father has studiously avoided reading any of them. But when the house lights dim, he understands that his daughter has laid him bare, used the events of their summer to create an incisive, witty, skewering critique of the attitudes and sexual mores of men of his generation.  

Set through one staging of the play, The Hypocrite seamlessly and scorchingly shifts through time and perspective, illuminating an argument between a father and his daughter that, with impeccable nuance, examines the fraught inheritances each generation is left to contend with, and the struggle to nurture empathy in a world changing at lightning-speed.Praise for The Hypocrite

“The Hypocrite is a sharp book, beautifully written. Jo Hamya poses complex questions—about art and ethics, family life and sexual mores—and withholds from her reader any easy answers.”
—Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind

“Brilliant. Thrilling and unpredictable, it struck me as a story of misunderstanding and failed connection, told with a dreamy, Sofia Coppola-esque quality. As a portrayal of artistic creation fuelled by bitterness, The Hypocrite uncovers an uncomfortable truth: how a piece of art can both unify and alienate.”
—Natasha Brown, author of Assembly

“The Hypocrite is an acid chamber piece that skewers the father, mother and daughter at its heart without denying them their messy, affecting humanity. It’s tense, it’s painful, it’s funny. I loved it.”
—Chris Power, author of A Lonely Man

“Sharp, witty and astute about parents and children, but never cruel; I enjoyed it hugely.”
—David Nicholls, author of One Day

“I loved Jo Hamya’s elegantly plotted and wickedly funny The Hypocrite. A perfect and perfectly merciless novel.”
—Sarah Bernstein, author of Study for Obedience

“The Hypocrite is engrossing, acerbic and elegantly executed. Jo Hamya artfully reveals her characters’ flaws and vulnerabilities with humour, wit and style.”
—Lauren Aimee Curtis, author of Dolores

“Taut, poised.”
—The Bookseller, Editors’ Choice

Praise for Three Rooms

“Precisely and beautifully rendered.” 
—Katie Kitamura, New York Times Book Revie

“[Hamya’s] intelligence and stylistic restraint make this snapshot of England all the more damning.”
—Wall Street Journal

“An excellent evisceration of contemporary life.”
—Boston Globe  

“Hamya is brilliant.”
—Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“Hamya writes with a Cuskian pellucidity, but confronts capital and the precariat in a way Cusk never does, in its many smudgy, insidious forms.”
—Times Literary Supplement

“A phenomenal achievement.”
—The Times

“A cerebral and slyly caustic debut…the novel’s cool electricity relies on stress-testing every point of view it portrays.” 
—The Observer

“Biting and truthful.”
—The Guardian

“A sly, artful, seductive, contentedly idiosyncratic piece of work…The writing is sensuous, instinctive and free.” 
—The New StatesmanJO HAMYA is the author of Three Rooms and has written for The New York Times, The Guardian, and the Financial Times, among others. Currently, she works as an in-house writer and archivist for the Booker Prizes and its authors and is a PhD candidate at King’s College London.US

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