Content levels
Trigger warnings
Positive tags
Hero archetypes
Heroine archetypes
Protagonist archetypes
Themes
Synopsis
Tibor Tarent, a freelance photographer, is recalled to Britain from Anatolia where his wife Melanie has been killed by insurgent militia. IRGB is a nation living in the aftermath of a bizarre and terrifying terrorist atrocity - hundreds of thousands were wiped out when a vast triangle of west London was instantly annihilated. The authorities think the terrorist attack and the death of Tarent's wife are somehow connected. A century earlier, a stage magician is sent to the Western Front on a secret mission to render British reconnaissance aircraft invisible to the enemy. On his journey to the trenches he meets the visionary who believes that this will be the war to end all wars. In 1943, a woman pilot from Poland tells a young RAF technician of her escape from the Nazis, and her desperate need to return home. In the present day, a theoretical physicist stands in his English garden and creates the first adjacency. THE ADJACENT is a novel where nothing is quite as it seems. Where fiction and history intersect, where every version of reality is suspect, where truth and falsehood lie closely adjacent to one another. It shows why Christopher Priest is one of our greatest writers.
Is The Adjacent appropriate for my child?
Suitable for most readers 16 and up.
Complex literary fantasy with multiple timelines and perspectives, dealing with terrorism aftermath, wartime settings (WWI and WWII), and the death of the protagonist's wife. Cerebral and philosophically challenging rather than action-driven.
What to know going in
This book has moderate violence, no sexual content, and mild language. Content notes include death of a loved one, mass death, and grief (see the full list above).
Who'll love this
Sophisticated readers will appreciate the intricate puzzle-box structure and philosophical questions about reality and truth.