"Truths of the heart, sisterly devotion, grief, and medical ethics — this beautifully-written debut is a life-affirming, love-filled tear-jerker."
Suffused in the rawness of grief and desperate devotion, Hannah Bent’s When Things Are Alive They Hum is a devastatingly moving debut. Filled with grace, it recounts the pain and moral dilemma of a young woman who refuses to accept the brutal reality that her beloved sister is dying.
Twenty-year-old Harper was born with a congenital heart disorder and has Downs syndrome, which she prefers to call Up syndrome. A force of joy who’s adored by her family and boyfriend, Harper is an inspirational young woman who knows truths of the heart, as seen in the entries she writes in her “autobiography storybook”, and through her deep understanding of people.
Feeling assured her little sister has found joy, Marlowe has moved to London to study rare butterflies. Then, as her academic star rises, she learns Harper is seriously ill and rushes home to Hong Kong to be at her side. When a succession of doctors say Harper is unsuitable for a heart transplant - her only remaining option - Marlowe takes drastic steps, because “Harper deserved to have a heart as much as anyone.” At the same time, Marlowe is still grappling with the pain of losing their mother at a tender age.
With fluttering grace, Bent explores profound questions around medical ethics, and how far a person might go for love. It’s a beautiful book of desperate love, perfectly told through Harper and Marlowe’s dual narratives.
| Primary Genre | General Fiction |
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When Things Are Alive They Hum poses profound questions about the nature of love and existence, the ways grief changes us, and how we confront the hand fate has dealt us.
Marlowe and Harper share a bond deeper than most sisters, shaped by the loss of their mother in childhood. For Harper, living with what she calls the Up syndrome and gifted with an endless capacity for wonder, Marlowe and she are connected by an invisible thread, like the hum that connects all things. For Marlowe, they are bound by her fierce determination to keep Harper, born with a congenital heart disorder, alive.
Now 25, Marlowe is finally living her own life abroad, pursuing her studies of a rare species of butterfly secure in the knowledge Harper’s happiness is complete, having found love with boyfriend, Louis. But then she receives the devastating call that Harper’s heart is failing. She needs a heart transplant but is denied one by the medical establishment because she is living with a disability. Marlowe rushes to her childhood home in Hong Kong to be by Harper’s side and soon has to answer the question – what lengths would you go to save your sister?
Intensely moving, exquisitely written and literally humming with wonder, it is a novel that celebrates life in all its guises, and what comes after.
When Things are Alive They Hum features in the following genres: General Fiction, Family Drama, Modern and Contemporary Fiction, Narrative theme: Social issues, Narrative theme: Death, grief, loss, Fiction, Fiction: narrative themes, Book Club Recommendations, Recommendations, Star Books, Literary Fiction, Literary Fiction
When Things are Alive They Hum is available in Paperback, Ebook, Hardback
When Things are Alive They Hum was written by Hannah Bent and published by Ultimo Press
When Things are Alive They Hum has 368 pages
£13.49
