The Transition

The Transition
Luke Kennard

Black Mirror meets David Nicholls in this dark and funny novel about love in dystopian times

LONGLISTED FOR THE DESMOND ELLIOTT PRIZE FOR FICTION

Karl has let his debts get wildly out of control and, in desperation, has sort of semi-accidentally committed credit-card fraud. Now he could have to go to prison, so when he and his wife Genevieve are instead offered a place on a mysterious self-improvement scheme called The Transition, they agree. It’s only six months, after all, and at first all it requires is that they give up their credit cards and move into the spare room of their ‘mentors’, Janna and Stu, who seem perfectly lovely…

‘A total page-turner’ Nathan Filer , author of The Shock of the Fall

‘The sort of book that has you walking blindly through seven lanes of traffic with your face pressed obliviously to the page’ The Times

‘Very funny, compassionate and scathing. Just the ticket for fans of Jonathan Coe’ Laline Paull, author of The Bees

‘Richly enjoyable, tenderly devastating’ Guardian

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Copyright (#u8dbad0ef-bff8-5bc7-834e-390a1c7b55f6)

4th Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.4thEstate.co.uk (http://www.4thEstate.co.uk)

This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2017

Copyright © Luke Kennard 2017

Cover design by Jonathan Pelham

The right of Luke Kennard to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008200428

Ebook Edition © January 2017 ISBN: 9780008200442

Version: 2017-07-20

Dedication (#u8dbad0ef-bff8-5bc7-834e-390a1c7b55f6)

For Zoë

Contents

Cover (#u0e216db0-24da-5e62-b62b-52fa3d67c4f5)

Title Page (#u89ea8629-73e1-5917-9f6f-de640773d929)

Copyright (#u173dcdb9-8f73-5d99-b66d-86e6f5558ab7)

Dedication (#u00b48ecd-b04e-5c4e-b3f4-4327551eeaa6)

Chapter 1 (#ua1149e08-4747-5076-acc2-a71fc1498a48)

Chapter 2 (#uf031a244-e0f9-5791-bb65-6aab52560060)

Chapter 3 (#u0793e793-3bc3-5eed-ad40-531da588c3d9)

Chapter 4 (#ue5a0a75d-8526-5c26-8a8b-a1ccdb072f70)

Chapter 5 (#u642c5be1-ca0f-55ab-be03-cf652a0f97e2)

Chapter 6 (#u4eb765d7-f36d-57cf-b843-d56b9f391fa1)

Chapter 7 (#u35823cfc-ef79-54b9-886e-cdba03d3e104)

Chapter 8 (#uda1c2d39-1aa5-5f85-96ad-1cd947050b9f)

Chapter 9 (#ude978645-8d42-51f2-8611-630d47943f06)

Chapter 10 (#ue8b80bf6-60c3-54d7-b2dc-70eac728b8bc)

Chapter 11 (#u3b1c4698-62c5-5b29-a192-cd9da4be981d)

Chapter 12 (#u1a5ae217-3f2e-55a7-9f55-6cd08875cc02)

Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)