"A small masterpiece" ( National Post)-An utterly original first novel from a rising international star On a cold, rainy night, an aging bachelor named George Ticknor prepares to visit his childhood friend Prescott, now one of the leading intellectual lights of their generation. Reviewing a life of petty humiliations, and his friend's brilliant career, Ticknor sets out for the dinner party-a party at which he'd just as soon never arrive. Distantly inspired by the real-life friendship between the great historian William Hickling Prescott and his biographer, Ticknor is a witty, fantastical study in resentment. It recalls such modern masterpieces of obsession as Thomas Bernhard's The Loser and Nicholson Baker's The Mezzanine and announces the arrival of a charming and original novelist, one whose stories have already earned her a passionate international following. "A perceptive act of ventriloquism, [ Ticknor] rewards thought and rereading, and offers a finely cadenced voice, intelligence and . . . moody beauty." -Catherine Bush, The Globe and Mail "Confoundedly strange [and] fascinating." -Nicholas Dinka, Quill & Quire

Sheila Heti is the author of eleven books, including the novels Pure Colour, Motherhood, and How Should a Person Be?, which New York deemed one of the "New Classics" of the twenty-first century. She was named one of the "New Vanguard" by the New York Times book critics, who, along with a dozen other magazines and newspapers, chose Motherhood as a top book of 2018. Her books have been translated into twenty-four languages. She lives in Toronto.