Never Let Me Go

Thought-provoking and unsettling by turns, Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel gradually unveils the true nature of three children’s apparently happy childhoods.Kathy, Ruth and Tommy were pupils at Hailsham - an idyllic establishment situated deep in the English countryside. The children were sheltered entirely from the outside world and brought up to believe they were special. But why were they really there? Now 31, Kathy looks back on the past and narrates the haunting story of how she and her two friends slowly came to confront the truth about their past - and about their futures."It's a thoughtful, crafty, and finally very disquieting look at the effects of dehumanization on any group that's subject to it. In Ishiguro's subtle hands, these effects are far from obvious ... Ishiguro's tone is perfect: Kathy is intelligent but nothing extraordinary...It's all hideously familiar and gruesomely compelling to anyone who ever kept a teenage diary... What is art for? the characters ask. They connect the question to their own circumstances, but surely they speak for anyone with a connection with the arts: What is art for?... The people in it aren't heroic. The ending is not comforting. Nevertheless, this is a brilliantly executed book by a master craftsman who has chosen a difficult subject: ourselves, seen through a glass, darkly." - Margaret Atwood, SlateKazuo Ishiguro’s works of fiction have earned him many honours around the world, including the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go were both made into acclaimed films, and have each sold more than 2 million copies. Ishiguro was awarded a knighthood in 2018 for Services to Literature. He also holds the decorations of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from France and the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star from Japan. "From the acclaimed author of The Remains of the Day and When We Were Orphans, a moving new novel that subtly reimagines our world and time in a haunting story of friendship and love. As a child, Kathy--now thirty-one years old--lived at Hailsham, a private school in the scenic English countryside where the children were sheltered from the outside world, brought up to believe that they were special and that their well-being was crucial not only for themselves but for the society they would eventually enter. Kathy had long ago put this idyllic past behind her, but when two of her Hailsham friends come back into her life, she stops resisting the pull of memory. And so, as her friendship with Ruth is rekindled, and as the feelings that long ago fueled her adolescent crush on Tommy begin to deepen into love, Kathy recalls their years at Hailsham. She describes happy scenes of boys and girls growing up together, unperturbed--even comforted--by their isolation. But she describes other scenes as well: of discord and misunderstanding that hint at a dark secret behind Hailsham's nurturing facade. With the dawning clarity of hindsight, the three friends are compelled to face the truth about their childhood--and about their lives now. A tale of deceptive simplicity, Never Let Me Go slowly reveals an extraordinary emotional depth and resonance--and takes its place among Kazuo Ishiguro's finest work."-- Book jacket From The Booker Prize-winning Author Of The Remains Of The Day And When We Were Orphans, Comes An Unforgettable Edge-of-your-seat Mystery That Is At Once Heartbreakingly Tender And Morally Courageous About What It Means To Be Human. Hailsham Seems Like A Pleasant English Boarding School, Far From The Influences Of The City. Its Students Are Well Tended And Supported, Trained In Art And Literature, And Become Just The Sort Of People The World Wants Them To Be. But, Curiously, They Are Taught Nothing Of The Outside World And Are Allowed Little Contact With It. Within The Grounds Of Hailsham, Kathy Grows From Schoolgirl To Young Woman, But It's Only When She And Her Friends Ruth And Tommy Leave The Safe Grounds Of The School (as They Always Knew They Would) That They Realize The Full Truth Of What Hailsham Is. Kazuo Ishiguro. Ishiguro explores what it means to have a soul and how art distinguishes man from other life forms. But above all, *Never Let Me Go* is a study of friendship and the bonds we form which make or break while we come of age.