OK, Mr Field - Katharine Kilalea

Shortlisted for the London Magazine and Collyer Bristow Debut Fiction Prize, 2019

Mr Field, a concert pianist travelling back from a performance in London, suffers a fractured wrist in a train crash. On a whim, he uses his compensation money to buy a house he has seen in a newspaper - a replica of Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye -- on the coast outside Cape Town. But when Mr Field moves there with his wife, Mim, he finds that the house has a disturbing and unexpected effect. Dwelling in the gaps within conversations, and the distances between people, OK, Mr Field is a powerful story of obsession, disintegration and loneliness.