The Beat of the Pendulum

The book of the year... Every day for a year, Catherine Chidgey recorded the words and language she came across during her day-to-day life - phone calls, television commercials, emails, radio shows, conversations with her family, street signs and satnav instructions. From these seemingly random snippets, she creates a fascinating portrait of modern life, focusing on the things that most people filter out. Chidgey listens in as her daughter, born through surrogacy, begins to speak and develop a personality, and her mother slips into dementia. With her husband, she debates the pros and cons of moving to a new town. With her publisher, she discusses the novel she is writing. While, all around, the world is bombarding her with information. InThe Beat of the Pendulum, Chidgey approaches the idea of the novel from an experimental new direction. It is bold, exciting, funny, moving and utterly compelling. 'For those who love books, Catherine Chidgey is a find' - Ali Smith 

Catherine Chidgey was born in Auckland, New Zealand. Her debut novel, In a Fishbone Church, won Best First Book at the New Zealand Book Awards as well as a Commonwealth Writers' Prize. Her next novel, Golden Deeds, was named a Best Book of the Year in the Los Angeles Times and a Notable Book of the Year in the New York Times. Her novel The Transformation also won widespread acclaim, and The Wish Child won the New Zealand Book Awards fiction prize, the country's biggest literary award. In 2003 she was named best New Zealand novelist under forty. She has degrees in German literature, psychology and creative writing, and is a member of the Academy of New Zealand Literature. She teaches creative writing at the University of Waikato, and lives near Hamilton with her husband and daughter.