The Dumb House Av John Burnside

<p><b>As a child, Luke’s mother often tells him the story of the Dumb House, an experiment on newborn babies raised in silence, designed to test the innateness of language.</b><br><br>As Luke grows up, his interest in language and the delicate balance of life and death leads to amateur dissections of small animals – tiny hearts revealed still pumping, as life trickles away. But as an adult, following the death of his mother, Luke’s obsession deepens, resulting in a haunting and bizarre experiment on Luke’s own children.<br><br><b>‘A wonderfully disturbing book - chillingly focused and lyrically amoral with moments of remarkable stillness and beauty.’ A.L. Kennedy</b><br><br><b>‘Burnside''s prose is exquisite, and he dissects his themes with delicacy to produce a novel resonant with poetic menace’ <i>Sunday Times</i></b></p>