The Bricks That Built the Houses by Kae Tempest

The Bricks That Built the Houses by Kae Tempest

Becky, Harry, and Leon are leaving London in a fourth-hand Ford with a suitcase full of stolen money, in a mess of tangled loyalties and impulses. But can they truly leave the city that's in their bones?

Kate Tempest's novel reaches back through time--through tensely quiet dining rooms and crassly loud clubs--to the first time Becky and Harry meet. It sprawls through their lives and those they touch--of their families and friends and faces on the street--revealing intimacies and the moments that make them. And it captures the contemporary struggle of urban life, of young people seeking jobs or juggling jobs, harboring ambitions and making compromises.

The Bricks that Built the Houses is an unexpected love story. It's about being young, but being part of something old. It's about how we become ourselves, and how we effect our futures. Rich in character and restless in perspective, driven by ethics and empathy, it asks--and seeks to answer--how best to live with and love one another.

Kate Tempest, a major talent in the poetry and music worlds, sits poised to become a major novelist as well.

Kate Tempest was born in London in 1985. Her work includes the plays Wasted, Glasshouse, and Hopelessly Devoted; the poetry collections Everything Speaks in its Own Way and Hold Your Own; the albums Everybody Down, Balance, and Let Them Eat Chaos; the long poems Brand New Ancients and Let Them Eat Chaos; and her debut novel, The Bricks that Built the Houses.

She was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize for both Everybody Down and Let Them Eat Chaos and received the Ted Hughes Award and a Herald Angel Award for Brand New Ancients.Kate was also named a Next Generation poet. In 2018 she was nominated for a Brit Award for Best British Female Solo Artist.

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