Eliza Clark - Penance | Friday 24 May, 6.30pm at Durham Distillery

Admission only: £8.00

Admission + goody bag (including a paperback of Penance, a Collected tote bag, and sampler from She's Always Hungry, Eliza's forthcoming short story collection): £20.00

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We are BEYOND EXCITED to be welcoming the brilliant Eliza Clark to Durham, celebrating the paperback publication of Penance, her blistering and masterfully meta second novel. You all know how firm a favourite Boy Parts - Eliza's cult debut novel - is at Collected, and we were no less obsessed when Penance was published in summer 2023.

PLEASE NOTE: this event will be held at Durham Distillery, 30-31 Prince Bishops Place, DH1 3UL

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It’s been nearly a decade since the horrifying murder of sixteen-year-old Joan Wilson rocked Crow-on-Sea, and the events of that terrible night are now being published for the first time.

That story is Penance, a dizzying feat of masterful storytelling, where Eliza Clark manoeuvres us through accounts from the inhabitants of this small seaside town. Placing us in the capable hands of journalist Alec. Z. Carelli, Clark allows him to construct what he claims is the ‘definitive account’ of the murder – and what led up to it. Built on hours of interviews with witnesses and family members, painstaking historical research, and most notably, correspondence with the killers themselves, the result is a riveting snapshot of lives rocked by tragedy, and a town left in turmoil.

The only question is: how much of it is true?

Join us to hear Eliza Clark discuss her completely chilling, brilliantly compulsive story of a murder among teenagers on the eve of the Brexit vote – “a meta-meditation on the mysteries, malice, and minutiae of adolescence.” (Tom Benn)

At this event, Eliza will be talking about PENANCE in conversation with writer, musician, part-time librarian, and host of NARC Magazine’s My Writing Life podcast Françoise Harvey.