Held by Anne Michaels

1917. On a battlefield near the River Aisne, John lies in the aftermath of a blast, unable to move or feel his legs. Struggling to focus his thoughts, he is lost to memory a chance encounter in a pub by a railway, a hot bath with his lover on a winter night, his childhood on a faraway coast as the snow falls.

1920. John has returned from war to North Yorkshire, near another riveralive, but not whole. Reunited with Helena, an artist, he reopens his photography business and endeavours to keep on living. But the past erupts insistently into the present, asghosts begin to surface in his pictures: ghosts whose messages he cannot understand.

So begins a narrative that spans four generations, moments of connection and consequenceigniting and re-ignitingas the century unfolds. In luminous moments of desire, comprehension, longing, and transcendence, the sparks fly upward, working their transformations decades later. This resonance through time not only of actions but also of feelings and perceptions desire in its many forms are at the heart of this novel's profound investigation. (From Penguin Random House Canada)

Heldis shortlisted for thefor the2024 Giller Prizeand the2024 Booker Prize.

• Anne Michaels, Conor Kerr among finalists for 2024 Giller Prize
• 12 Canadian books make longlist for 2024 $100K Giller Prize
• Anne Michaels latest bookHeldis a decades-spanning novel about desire, life and death

Anne Michaelsis the winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction, the Guardian Fiction Prize, the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, the Trillium Book Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She has been shortlisted for theGovernor General's Literary Award, the Griffin Poetry Prize and the ScotiabankGiller Prize.