The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey: A work of conscience and consequence
The Book of Guilt
Author
:
Catherine Chidgey
ISBN-13
:
9781399823623
Publisher
:
John Murray
Guideline Price
:
£15.99
'Before I knew what I was, I lived with my brothers in a grand old house in the heart of the New Forest.' So begins Catherine Chidgey's quietly devastating novel, The Book of Guilt, a haunting blend of psychological fable, gothic parable, and slow-burn thriller.
Set in England in 1979, it tells the story of Vincent, Laurence and William, identical triplets raised under the Sycamore Scheme, a secretive government project housed in an isolated care home.
At first, there is something of a sleepy fairy tale in the way the boys are raised in isolation, their dreams reaching seaward, 'a gentle hushing as constant as the hushing of our own breaths, our own blood'.
Overseeing them are three matriarchs, Mother Morning, Mother Afternoon and Mother Night, who monitor every detail of the boys' lives. Dreams are catalogued in The Book of Dreams, lessons in The Book of Knowledge and every offence in The Book of Guilt.
READ MORE
But beneath the routine, something feels wrong. This is not parenting, it is programming. The strangeness seeps in slowly, with devastating effect. The boys begin to question why their meals are laced with medicine or why their reading is confined to dusty encyclopedias. 'We didn't know the name of our sickness, and its symptoms varied from month to month and boy to boy; we just called it the Bug.'
They are promised a reward, a place in the Big House by the sea in Margate, a paradise of endless play. Interwoven with their story is that of 13-year-old Nancy, kept inside by her overprotective parents in Exeter. Her growing claustrophobia mirrors the boys' captivity. Meanwhile, the Minister of Loneliness leads a government effort to dismantle the Sycamore Homes.
Chidgey writes with surgical precision and emotional weight. Like Never Let Me Go, it gradually unveils a reality that feels disturbingly plausible. The speculative premise, that children are 'copies' raised for obedience and discarded at signs of deviance, becomes a chilling metaphor for institutional control.
The Book of Guilt is a singular story that lingers, and burrows into the darker corners of childhood, surveillance, and what it means to truly see, or be seen. The result is a novel of conscience and consequence: quietly devastating, fiercely intelligent and unforgettable.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
3 hours ago
- Irish Times
My mother's plan to leave her house to my sister and I could create more problems than solutions
My mother's will currently leaves her home equally to my sister and I. My mother has minimal alternative assets. My sister lives with my mum. I am wondering if the home is left jointly to myself and my sister and my sister buys me out, will she be liable for CAT on her portion of the inheritance? it is unlikely for my sister to be able to raise the funds to cover the market value of 50 per cent of the property . Although I myself have a sizeable mortgage and significant dependents, it is not in my interest to see my sister and her children homeless . Furthermore I have doubts on how practical it would be for my sister to vacate the property if it was needed to be sold to execute the will. READ MORE I am concerned that I end up with a large liability from an asset that, in reality, I have no access to or ability to sell. Is it possible to say during the probate period that I don't want 50 per cent of the property, can I just have 25 per cent, and if so what are the tax implications? Ms BW Families are complicated things – deeply intertwined, generally emotionally interdependent and, for all the familiarity, inevitably unique one from the other in subtle ways. And that's very much how it is here. Your mother's home is more or less the sum total of what she will leave behind and she is understandably keen that it should be shared between her two children. The fact that your sister lives there with her own family is, somewhat depressingly, no longer as unusual as we would like to think it should be. Bad luck in love, in business or in life means many of us are not as independent as we would have expected to be well into our adult lives. But it does certainly complicate things. There seem to be two distinct issues here – the initial inheritance and then how you two can find a workable solution. As of now, a person can receive an inheritance of up to €400,000 from their parents. Assuming neither of you inherited from your father or benefited from a valuable financial or other gift – something over the value of €3,000 in any one year – then you have the full inheritance tax-free limit to play with. So, as long as your mother's property is not worth more than €800,000, there should be no question of capital acquisitions tax (CAT), better known as inheritance tax, for either of you. [ Inheritance tax: How to avoid leaving your loved ones with a hefty bill Opens in new window ] If it is worth more than that, however, then you will have a tax liability – 33 per cent of anything above your personal limit. So if the property is worth, say, €950,000, your half share would be worth €475,000. You would pay 33 per cent tax on the €75,000 of value above your tax-free threshold – a bill of €24,750 each. Unless you both have ready access to that sort of cash, then you would be looking at having to sell the property and paying the tax owed. Your sister would have a net €450,000 to go and find a home thereafter and you would have your inheritance in cash of the same amount with no further tax owing on it. But let's assume the property is worth less than €800,000. What then? In simple terms, congratulations, you are joint owners of your mother's house. If you simply retain your interest in the house as an asset, there is no issue. When it is eventually sold, you will receive half the proceeds and your only 'liability' will be that any increase in value over the time you inherited it will be subject to capital gains tax – again at 33 per cent. There would need to be agreement between you and your sister, preferably in writing, that any running costs, regular maintenance, utility bills, local property tax etc would be met by her as they are her living costs, not yours. But what if your own financial circumstances dictate that you really need to get access to your inheritance or some of it? You say your sister would most likely not qualify for a mortgage to buy out your half: perhaps she could buy out a smaller portion, leaving you with reduced ownership of the property and some cash in hand. That would not leave her with any tax issues apart from a modest stamp duty bill. And, as it will be her family home, there will be no tax issues when she eventually sells it either. You could agree a staged purchase of your share over an extended period to make it more affordable to her. That would complicate things for you as each stage could trigger a capital gains charge if the gain on the portion being sold was greater than €1,270 in any one year. And there would also be stamp duty implications. Or you could agree to sell the house provided your sister is happy that her share of the sale proceeds would allow her to buy a home elsewhere or the wherewithal to raise a mortgage on a smaller home. How practical that is really depends on how much value there is in this current family home. In a world where you, understandably, do not want your sister and her family homeless, the realistic options are to sit on your inheritance and consider it an invested asset, get your sister to buy a portion of your share or agree to sell the property and use the proceeds for her to start again. You say your mother's 'current will'. I am assuming then that she is still alive. If this looks like becoming an intractable mess but you think your sister could raise enough to buy you out of a quarter share – and you are content that the inheritance will be lopsided according to your respective needs – you can always see if your mother is open to adjusting her will. Obviously, the choice is hers. [ Who gets the house: have you spoken to your parents about happens when they die? Opens in new window ] Can such cases end up in legal dispute? Yes, they can where one side wants to sell and the other refuses. But, really, the only winners in that scenario are the lawyers. Finally, on your suggestion that you might just say during probate that you only want a quarter of the house, not a half, I'm afraid that won't work. It is possible to 'disclaim' an inheritance – ie, say that you do not want it – but you cannot disclaim and then try to rewrite the will to say I don't want all of this, just some of this or a bit of that. If it is a bequest – ie, half the property has specifically been left to you by name – and you disclaim, it falls into the residue of the will. Now, it could be that you are one of the benefits of the residue, in which case you might have to disclaim again. Disclaiming a bequest and/or the residue would not prevent you accepting any other specific bequest that was made in your favour – such as for a favoured piece of art or jewellery, for instance. But it would rule you out of any benefit from any of the residue – including any of the house your mother intended to leave you half of. You cannot say, for instance, I would like only a quarter and not a half. There is one way this could work for you, depending on how your mother's will is worded. As it is, you and your sister are getting 50 per cent each of the house. Assuming that is by bequest, you can disclaim the bequest. Your share then falls into the residue – assuming there is a residuary clause in the will. There really should be in every will, if only to account for forgotten assets, but it is not always the case. Anyway, assuming there is a residue and it is again split evenly between you and your sister, she will get half of your half, leaving you with 25 per cent ownership. In terms of tax implications, whether it is a quarter or a half will have no effect as long as the value of what you receive is under €400,000. However, if this arrangement meant your sister got 75 per cent of the house and that portion was valued at more than €400,000, she would face a bill of 33 per cent of everything above that figure. That could, of course, force her to sell the house anyway which would defeat the object of the exercise. So you really do need to think this through carefully, and ideally get professional advice. The one thing you don't want is this gift from your mum leading to family discord. Please send your queries to Dominic Coyle, Q&A, The Irish Times, 24-28 Tara Street Dublin 2, or by email to with a contact phone number. This column is a reader service and is not intended to replace professional advice
Irish Times
a day ago
- Irish Times
PSG and Inter could thrill us in the Champions League final, but something has already been lost
Before this season's League Cup final between Newcastle United and Liverpool , the Times (London) interviewed Malcolm Macdonald, the former buccaneering Newcastle centre forward. Macdonald played for Newcastle in the 1974 FA Cup final and brought up the name of Keith Burkinshaw, who was a coach at St James' Park at the time. Burkinshaw moved to Tottenham Hotspur , where he became manager and won the 1984 Uefa Cup – Tottenham's last European trophy until 10 days ago. Burkinshaw walked out soon after a boardroom disagreement. In a famous exchange with the reporter Ken Jones, a former player and cousin of Spurs legend Cliff Jones, both looked back at old White Hart Lane and agreed: 'There used to be a football club over there.' It was actually Jones referencing a Frank Sinatra song, but the point was made. A year earlier Tottenham Hotspur had been repackaged into Tottenham Hotspur plc, which was subsequently floated on the London stock exchange. Others followed. Now shares in clubs, and clubs themselves, could be bought and sold in a way Football Association rules had previously forbidden. It was a historic moment of change; it continues to shape the present. As season 2024-25 reaches its European climax with the Champions League final in Munich between Internazionale and Paris Saint-Germain , the Burkinshaw remark feels as pertinent as ever – not just about Tottenham, but Newcastle, Manchester City and both of these finalists, among others. READ MORE Formed in 1908 via a schism inside AC Milan, Inter remained in Italian ownership until 2013 when a trio of Indonesian businessmen bought 70 per cent of its shares. In 2016 those were sold to Chinese group Suning, who then defaulted on a loan. It means US investors Oaktree today own a sporting institution 117 years old. United States ownership of Serie A clubs is up to eight. PSG were not formed until 1970, via a merger. The French capital did not have an elite football club and the newly renovated Parc des Princes required tenants. Originally fan-owned – annual subscription: six francs – the club moved, some would say stumbled, through various ownerships until 2011 when Qatari Sports Investment acquired them. Whether six-francs fans wanted it or not, PSG were now part of the Qatari regime's 'National Vision 2030″, a policy aimed at turning the Gulf city-state of Doha into an 'advanced, sustainable society'. Apparently European football was deemed essential to this vision. PSG had been champions of France twice until 2013. Between 2000 and 2012 seven different clubs had won Ligue 1. Now so much money has been ploughed in that PSG have been French champions 11 times in the past 13 seasons. Qatari-PSG eliminated variety. At Uefa they were worried quickly. Having seen the inflationary effect of Roman Abramovich at Chelsea , then Abu Dhabi's purchase of City in 2008, Uefa began to formulate new financial regulations to prevent the 'financial doping' concern Arsène Wenger raised in 2009. That remark was about the new Chelsea, with the whiff of Lance Armstrong still in the air of sport. As Miguel Delaney notes in his valuable book on the subject of modern football, States of Play, PSG had an income of €398 million in 2012-13, but an estimated €200 million came from the Qatar Tourism Authority, which was convenient. Delaney quotes a then senior Uefa spokesman saying of PSG: 'They know the rules are that they have to generate revenues to cover their costs without cheating.' His name was Gianni Infantino . As president of Fifa, Gianni Infantino announced Saudi Arabia will host the World Cup in 2034, 12 years after it was hosted by Qatar. Photograph: Nick Potts/PA Wire Doping, cheating: those are quite the words. In May 2014 PSG's Qatari owners and Uefa reached a 'settlement'. There was a headline €60 million fine and a reduction in Champions League squad-size from 25 to 21 players. Later the same month Man City received the same sanction. [ Ken Early: Fifa president Gianni Infantino has relentlessly sucked up to Trump since 2017 Opens in new window ] The new men from the Gulf who ran both clubs were incensed by Uefa's language, but then these are men who are rarely challenged. The Qatari hierarchy in Doha had schemed to get the 2022 World Cup and in doing so had become close to French president Nicolas Sarkozy and Uefa's Michel Platini. They were good at manoeuvring. Even in their anger at Uefa, Delaney writes the situation can be seen as 'two clubs owned by autocracies pressurising a governing body into a secret deal'. As with Spurs in 1983, Delaney traces this compromise as a turning point. With €50 million raised in finger-clicks, the likes of David Luiz, Angel Di Maria and Julian Draxler were added to PSG in the next transfer windows. Then in the summer of 2017 the world record transfer fee was obliterated as Neymar joined from Barcelona for €222 million. Not content with that PSG signed Kylian Mbappé on loan from AS Monaco. 'Loan' is a gentle way of putting it: Mbappé cost €180 million the following summer. Qatar splashed this €400 million, plus €1 million a week for Neymar and all the rest, shortly after they had been geographically isolated by Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt and others, who cut diplomatic ties. The projection of Vision 2030 was still working for Qatar, but it was alienating neighbours as well as having a numbing side effect on domestic French football's competitiveness. Having arranged to parade David Beckham for the last five months of his career in 2013, in August 2021 Qatar brought Lionel Messi from Barcelona to join Neymar. Qatar had already, controversially and undeservedly, been given the 2022 World Cup. The tournament climaxed with Argentina beating France in an unforgettable final; Messi was draped in a bisht over his Argentina colours as he lifted the trophy. Qatar, make no mistake, thought they owned football. Lionel Messi, then of PSG, gets his hand and lips on the World Cup after victory in Qatar in 2022. Photograph:Who could argue with them? Their ownership of PSG is 13 years old, indisputable, normalised. 'Ici c'est Paris' is PSG branding, a statement of geographical pride; yet when the club played the French Super Cup against Monaco in January, the game was staged in Doha, not France. As reported by Doha News, PSG head coach Luis Enrique said before the game: 'We're going to play this match as if it were at home, because we are at home.' Ici c'est Doha. Doha News, though, was focused on why so few locals stayed around to watch the trophy presentation. 'Why has Qatar's ownership of PSG not translated to fandom at home?' it asked. Maybe, we thought, because it's a manufactured enterprise in a city-state of 1.5 million people with no serious football culture? The bigger issue, of ownership, was not in debate. Burkinshaw had thoughts on all this 40 years ago. Now Tottenham Hotspur send out advisory notes to broadcasters to call them 'Spurs' or 'Tottenham Hotspur' but never simply 'Tottenham'. Even if it's to protect copyright, it's crass and a denial of origin. Such 'brand' policies help explain why six weeks before Tottenham won the Europa League, their fans were on the street protesting about the running of the club and what it has become, a sports company mes que un club. 'Built a business, killed a football club' read a banner. James Montague, in another recent book – Engulfed: how Saudi Arabia bought sport, and the world – notes that sports reporting in the Gulf can be curiously strong, given other criticism is not tolerated. Saudi Arabia came to sport's non-sport potential later than its much smaller competitors, Qatar and the UAE, but the Saudis have rushed to make up for that. They brought out their own Vision 2030 and it now directs much of global golf, e-sports and boxing – Saudi minister Turki Alalshikh bought The Ring magazine; plus football, via its Cristiano Ronaldo-led Saudi Pro League and the acquisition of Newcastle United. Saudi Arabia's Mohammed Al-Owais saves a shot from South Korea's Jae-Sung Lee during a friendly match at St James' Park, Newcastle in 2023. Photograph: Will Matthews/PA Wire Saudi Arabia has a long-standing football culture and connections – Saudi Telecom has sponsored Manchester United for years. Saudi Investment Bank SAIB started sponsoring Real Madrid two years ago. The country's right to hold a World Cup, which they will do in 2034, is more convincing than Qatar's. But how they got it – via the tricky chameleon Infantino – is less so, and Burkinshaw might question the Saudi Public Investment Fund's motivation in taking over at St James'. It was about influence and the hardening of soft power. It involved, as the Daily Mail reported in June 2020, direct contact between then UK prime minister Boris Johnson and Saudi's ultimate leader Mohammed Bin Salman. A purchase stalled suddenly changed gear. Public delight at St James' baffled and disturbed. But northeast England had long felt a geographic distance from political power, which fed Brexit sentiment. At Newcastle United the feeling was doubled by the deliberately hollow running of the club by previous owner Mike Ashley, for whom it became a commercial billboard. A club's identity is precious, but not impregnable. Those who disdain Newcastle since the Saudi takeover may be fed up hearing these explanations as to why there is almost no protest in the city – Montague did not find many dissenters; instead a big river of more than 200,000 people flowed through the streets in celebration at winning this season's League Cup. Equally, Newcastle fans are fed up with hearing about Saudi Arabia's human rights record, or having it pointed out that the League Cup could not have been won without Saudi money, or that the reserve team kit is Saudi green, training camps are held in Riyadh and in September 2023 Saudi Arabia staged two friendlies at St James'. Those of us there for the South Korea game heard the tannoy announce: 'It's been a pleasure to host Saudi Arabia here at St James' Park.' Everyone got the message. And as each match, each season passes, it all puts the norm in normalisation. Flowers of variety There never used to be a football club over there: so in Paris they created PSG. It was not for the same reason Viktor Orban, for example, has built his club, Puskas Akademia, in Hungary but like the former Felcsut FC, Qatari-PSG has been transformed into a different entity. PSG's identity has become increasingly blurred under in recent years. Photograph: David Davies/PA Wire And here they are in the last game of the season. We all admire this version of PSG, however – how could you not with talents such asKhvicha Kvaratskhelia and Désiré Doué? [ In Orban's Hungary, football clubs like Robbie Keane's Ferencváros are no longer just teams Opens in new window ] It makes for a strange end to a curious season, which was somehow simultaneously dull and dazzling. The new Champions League format worked, mainly, and there were great nights for Celtic and Aston Villa. The incredible Inter-Barcelona semi-final made you smile out loud. In England Liverpool may have walked alone to the Premier League title, yet there were amazing scenes of jubilation at Crystal Palace, in Leeds, Newcastle and at 'Tottenham', in Tottenham. In Scotland 40 years of Old Firm league domination was offset by Aberdeen's Scottish Cup win. Flowers of variety have bloomed. On Saturday night we have an enticing climax. Qatar has its name literally written all over it – Qatar Airways' press release on Thursday revelled in their sponsorship of both finalists and the tournament itself. And it's not over. Six years after Jürgen Klopp sat in an Edinburgh hotel preseason and warned of player burnout, bureaucratic ego and sports politics – Infantino – bring us the needless, money-soaked Club World Cup, starting in Miami in a fortnight. Football in 2025. It never ends. Laugh and sigh.
Irish Times
a day ago
- Irish Times
The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey: A work of conscience and consequence
The Book of Guilt Author : Catherine Chidgey ISBN-13 : 9781399823623 Publisher : John Murray Guideline Price : £15.99 'Before I knew what I was, I lived with my brothers in a grand old house in the heart of the New Forest.' So begins Catherine Chidgey's quietly devastating novel, The Book of Guilt, a haunting blend of psychological fable, gothic parable, and slow-burn thriller. Set in England in 1979, it tells the story of Vincent, Laurence and William, identical triplets raised under the Sycamore Scheme, a secretive government project housed in an isolated care home. At first, there is something of a sleepy fairy tale in the way the boys are raised in isolation, their dreams reaching seaward, 'a gentle hushing as constant as the hushing of our own breaths, our own blood'. Overseeing them are three matriarchs, Mother Morning, Mother Afternoon and Mother Night, who monitor every detail of the boys' lives. Dreams are catalogued in The Book of Dreams, lessons in The Book of Knowledge and every offence in The Book of Guilt. READ MORE But beneath the routine, something feels wrong. This is not parenting, it is programming. The strangeness seeps in slowly, with devastating effect. The boys begin to question why their meals are laced with medicine or why their reading is confined to dusty encyclopedias. 'We didn't know the name of our sickness, and its symptoms varied from month to month and boy to boy; we just called it the Bug.' They are promised a reward, a place in the Big House by the sea in Margate, a paradise of endless play. Interwoven with their story is that of 13-year-old Nancy, kept inside by her overprotective parents in Exeter. Her growing claustrophobia mirrors the boys' captivity. Meanwhile, the Minister of Loneliness leads a government effort to dismantle the Sycamore Homes. Chidgey writes with surgical precision and emotional weight. Like Never Let Me Go, it gradually unveils a reality that feels disturbingly plausible. The speculative premise, that children are 'copies' raised for obedience and discarded at signs of deviance, becomes a chilling metaphor for institutional control. The Book of Guilt is a singular story that lingers, and burrows into the darker corners of childhood, surveillance, and what it means to truly see, or be seen. The result is a novel of conscience and consequence: quietly devastating, fiercely intelligent and unforgettable.
