{"id":267487,"date":"2025-06-01T18:49:47","date_gmt":"2025-06-01T18:49:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/entertainment\/books\/the-book-of-guilt-by-catherine-chidgey-sometimes-we-lie-to-be-kind\/"},"modified":"2025-06-01T18:49:47","modified_gmt":"2025-06-01T18:49:47","slug":"the-book-of-guilt-by-catherine-chidgey-sometimes-we-lie-to-be-kind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=267487","title":{"rendered":"The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey: \u2018Sometimes we lie to be kind.\u2019 \u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div itemprop=\"text\">\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-34148\" src=\"https:\/\/t9z6e6y4.delivery.rocketcdn.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/The-Book-of-Guilt-195x300.webp\" alt=\"Cover image of for The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey\" width=\"195\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/t9z6e6y4.delivery.rocketcdn.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/The-Book-of-Guilt-195x300.webp 195w, https:\/\/t9z6e6y4.delivery.rocketcdn.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/The-Book-of-Guilt.webp 325w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 195px) 100vw, 195px\"\/>I\u2019d been toying with reading <em>The Book of Guilt<\/em> for a while thanks to some very positive reviews on NetGallery but it was <a href=\"https:\/\/drlauratisdall.wordpress.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Laura\u2019s<\/a> comment about Catherine Chidgey on my <a href=\"https:\/\/alifeinbooks.co.uk\/2024\/11\/five-novels-ive-read-by-new-zealanders\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">New Zealand writers post<\/a> that tipped the balance. Chidgey\u2019s novel follows a set of triplets living in a children\u2019s home in the New Forest, one of several that formed part of the Sycamore Project to be wound down under the new government in 1979.<\/p>\n<p><em>We never thought of trying to escape. Those days were happy days, before I knew what I was.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Looked after by three \u2018mothers\u2019, thirteen-year-old Vincent, Lawrence and William have been told their parents both died young from heart attacks, obediently accepting the medicine administered every morning, recounting their dreams when they wake and attending lessons based on the Book of Knowledge. They\u2019re polite and well behaved although sometimes William is malicious, covered for by Vincent. They all long for the day a brochure arrives on their pillow, promising the delights of a trip to Margate with its fabulous amusement park. Now that the project is to end, the boys need to be rehomed, as do the Sycamore girls they meet on Socialisation Days. When Jane lets slip something about the daily medicine, Vincent begins to question what\u2019s been done to them. Meanwhile, thirteen-year-old Nancy has never set foot outside her parents\u2019 garden, hidden from view whenever tradesmen call and dressed in silvery-green on special occasions.<\/p>\n<p><em>We didn\u2019t mention the medicine our mothers had fed us all our lives, the things they hadn\u2019t told us. The fear we felt when we lay in our beds in the great dark house.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Chidgey\u2019s novel is largely set in an alternate version of 1979, close to reality but unsettlingly different, unfolding the Sycamore story through Vincent\u2019s voice. The inmates of the home have been brought up in isolation, treated with disdain on rare visits to the local town, comments that make no sense to them muttered as they pass. As the story unfolds, we learn about the Sycamore project through a series of reveals made even more jolting seen from Victor\u2019s perspective. What seems comforting and routine to him, is a little off then alarmingly so to the rest of us. There\u2019s a lot of darkness in Chidgey\u2019s novel which asks big questions about nature and nurture, what makes us human, and the ethics of research all wrapped up in a gripping piece of storytelling.<\/p>\n<p>John Murray London 9781399823616 400 pages Hardback (Read via NetGalley)<\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-block sd-like jetpack-likes-widget-wrapper jetpack-likes-widget-unloaded\" id=\"like-post-wrapper-52859811-34147-683c75924c0e3\" data-src=\"https:\/\/widgets.wp.com\/likes\/?ver=14.6#blog_id=52859811&amp;post_id=34147&amp;origin=alifeinbooks.co.uk&amp;obj_id=52859811-34147-683c75924c0e3\" data-name=\"like-post-frame-52859811-34147-683c75924c0e3\" data-title=\"Like or Reblog\">\n<h3 class=\"sd-title\">Like this:<\/h3>\n<p><span class=\"button\"><span>Like<\/span><\/span> <span class=\"loading\">Loading&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"sd-text-color\"\/><a class=\"sd-link-color\"\/><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019d been toying with reading The Book of Guilt for a while thanks to some very positive reviews on NetGallery but it was Laura\u2019s comment about Catherine Chidgey on my New Zealand writers post that tipped the balance. Chidgey\u2019s novel follows a set of triplets living in a children\u2019s home in the New Forest, one [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":177907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[67706,2268,4591,70590,32586,30747,95589,1588,4131,70597],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-267487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","tag-alternate-history","tag-book","tag-catherine","tag-catherine-chidgey","tag-chidgey","tag-guilt","tag-john-murray-press","tag-kind","tag-lie","tag-the-book-of-guilt"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey: \u2018Sometimes we lie to be kind.\u2019 \u00a0 - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=267487\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey: \u2018Sometimes we lie to be kind.\u2019 \u00a0 - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u2019d been toying with reading The Book of Guilt for a while thanks to some very positive reviews on NetGallery but it was Laura\u2019s comment about Catherine Chidgey on my New Zealand writers post that tipped the balance. 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