After a violent burglary, Joe Weaver and his family flee to a crumbling farmhouse in the south of France. There, they attempt to rebuild their lives. Joe has an idea for a new novel triggered by an atrocity that occurred toward the end of the Second World War. His wife concentrates on developing her business as an antique furniture restorer, breathing new life into dead things. Their five-year-old daughter makes friends with a blood-red ghost. And the house begins to shed its skins.…
“A richly layered novel of loss and love, so beautifully conceived that you can feel the stifling heat of the French summer, and the cool memories of wartime atrocities haunting the grey stone villages and seemingly innocent countryside. Each character is exquisitely written, and the shocks hit you like the kiss of a sniper’s bullet. One of Williams’s best, and that’s high praise indeed.”
—Tim Lebbon, author of Eden
“One of the authors most inspiring to me in terms of pushing the literary boundary of what horror means, or can achieve. His stories always startle as well as sparkle. Like many of the best writers, he paints a truthful landscape, then leaves the most horrific thing off screen, bidding you to picture it on your own. In the dark. Forever.”
—Stephen Volk, creator of Ghostwatch
“Williams’s beautifully written latest charts the slow burn of a man’s life collapsing in on itself — until suddenly it is incandescent and white hot. A moody investigation of how writing is desperately entangled with life, One Who Was With Me is about what we try to forget, and what, as a result, is allowed to worm its way in.”
—Brian Evenson
“In One Who Was With Me, Williams wastes not a single character or scene in creating a towering mystery of horror built upon brittle kindling awaiting a stray ember to set it ablaze. Highly recommended.”
—Dave Simms, Cemetery Dance
Conrad Williams 