Sophie Ward

The Schoolhouse is the latest novel from Sophie Ward, whose debut Love and Other Thought Experiments was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2020.

Isobel lives an isolated life in North London, working at a nearby library. She feels safe if she keeps to her routines and doesn’t let her thoughts stray too far into the past. But a newspaper photograph of a missing local schoolgirl and a letter from her old teacher are all it takes for her ordinary, careful armour to become overwhelmed, and the trauma of what happened during her school days to return.

The Schoolhouse was different – a 1970s experimental school, it was created in reaction to the formal methods of the past. The usual rules did not apply, and life there was a dark interplay of freedom and adventure, violence and fear. Only her teenage diary recorded what happened, but the truth is coming for her and everything she has tried to protect is put at risk.

Set between the past and the present, The Schoolhouse is a masterful and gripping novel about truth, silence, and the weight of the past.

Sophie Ward is an actor and writer from London. She has written for publications including the Guardian and the Times, appeared in A Very British Scandal and Land Girls, and recently completed her PhD exploring the use of narrative in philosophy of mind. We hope you can join us for an evening with this fascinating writer.