Graeme Macrae Burnet
Born in Kilmarnock, Graeme Macrae Burnet is among the UK’s leading contemporary novelists, having achieved both critical acclaim and best-selling status around the world. He lives in Glasgow, where he studied film and English literature. After teaching English overseas and working as a researcher in the television industry, he won a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award in 2013 and now writes full-time. He is best known for his dazzling Booker-shortlisted second novel, His Bloody Project. Graeme is also the author of two French-set detective novels: The Disappearance of Adele Bedeau (2014) and The Accident on the A35 (2017). Case Study is his fourth novel and was longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize.
Case Study
Read an extract
LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2022
“A page-turning blast, funny, sinister and perfectly plotted … Rarely has being constantly wrong-footed been so much fun.” James Walton, The Times “A novel of mind-bending brilliance.” Hannah Kent “Fun and funny, sly and serious, a beguiling literary game.” David Szalay
I have decided to write down everything that happens, because I feel, I suppose, I may be putting myself in danger.’
London, 1965. An unworldly young woman believes that a charismatic psychotherapist, Collins Braithwaite, has driven her sister to suicide. Intent on confirming her suspicions, she assumes a false identity and presents herself to him as a client, recording her experiences in a series of notebooks. But she soon finds herself drawn into a world in which she can no longer be certain of anything. Even her own character.
In Case Study, Graeme Macrae Burnet presents these notebooks interspersed with his own biographical research into Collins Braithwaite. The result is a dazzling – and often wickedly humorous – meditation on the nature of sanity, identity and truth itself, by one of the most inventive novelists writing today.
From the author of the Booker Prize-shortlisted His Bloody Project. www.casestudyGMB.com
Prizes and awards
SHORTLISTED: GORDON BURN PRIZE 2022
LONGLISTED: THE BOOKER PRIZE 2022
SHORTLISTED: NED KELLY AWARDS 2022
LONGLISTED: HWA GOLD CROWN 2022
REVIEWS OF Case Study
“Forensic, elusive and mordantly funny … layered with questions about authenticity and the self.” Booker Prize judges
“Encourages us to look more closely at the inherent instability of fiction itself … genuinely affecting … a very funny book.” –NINA ALLAN, GUARDIAN Read more
"Enormous fun … a mystery and a psychological drama wrapped up in one. Case Study is a triumph." – ALEX PRESTON, OBSERVER Read more
"Caustically funny and surprisingly moving, this is one of the finest novels of the year." – CHRISTIAN HOUSE, FINANCIAL TIMES
"Brilliant, bamboozling … Burnet captures his characters’ voices so brilliantly that what might have been just an intellectual game feels burstingly alive and engaging.” – JAKE KERRIDGE, TELEGRAPH
"A masterclass of diversion … blurring the lines of fiction and reality … serious and witty at once … an enthralling read." – HEATHER MCDAID, THE SKINNY
“Undoubtedly one of the best books of the year.” – ALISTAIR BRAIDWOOD, SCOTS WHAY HAE
"A riveting psychological plot ... tortuous, cunning ... clever." – KATE WEBB, THE TLS Read more
“Compelling … I was hooked like a fish.” – LEYLA SANAI, SPECTATOR Read more
“Poses questions about the nature of the self and the authenticity of identity … He is an uncommonly interesting and satisfying novelist.” – ALLAN MASSIE, SCOTSMAN Read more
“Sinister and cleverly done.” – DAILY MAIL
“A page-turning blast, funny, sinister and perfectly plotted … Rarely has being constantly wrong-footed been so much fun.” – JAMES WALTON, THE TIMES Read more
"A wonderful book, very beautifully and intricately written, finely detailed and at times laugh-out-loud funny, populated by satisfying, well-drawn characters." – ARABELLA WEIR
“What a book! … a dizzying experience … The characterisation is superb; so rich … The sense of time and place is also wonderful.” – CATHERINE SIMPSON
"A novel of mind-bending brilliance. Graeme Macrae Burnet is a master of muddying the waters, of troubling ideas of truth and identity, fiction and documentary, and Case Study shows him at the height of his powers." – HANNAH KENT
“A thrilling investigation into the nature of sanity and identity.” – ALICE O'KEEFFE, THE BOOKSELLER
“Fun and funny, sly and serious, a beguiling literary game that manages to say more about the nature of the self than any number of more self-consciously solemn works.” – DAVID SZALAY