Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein

A young woman moves from the place of her birth to the remote northern country of her forebears to be housekeeper to her brother, whose wife has recently left him.

Soon after her arrival, a series of inexplicable events occurs - collective bovine hysteria; the demise of a ewe and her nearly born lamb; a local dog's phantom pregnancy; a potato blight. She notices that the local suspicion about incomers in general seems to be directed with some intensity at her and she senses a mounting threatthat lies 'just beyond the garden gate.' And as she feels the hostility growing, pressing at the edges of her brother's property, she fears that, should the rumblings in the town gather themselves into a more defined shape, who knows what might happen, what one might be capable of doing.

With a sharp, lyrical voice, Sarah Bernstein powerfully explores questions of complicity and power, displacement and inheritance.Study for Obedienceis a finely tuned, unsettling novel that confirms Bernstein as one of the most exciting voices of her generation. (Knopf Canada)

Study for Obediencewon the 2023 Scotiabank Giller Prize.

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Sarah Bernstein is a Montreal-born author and creative writing teacher. Her other books include her 2021 novelThe Coming Bad Daysand her collection of prose poemsNow Comes the Lightning.Study for Obedienceis shortlistedfor the 2023 Booker Prize and one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists 2023. She currently lives in Scotland.

Interviews with Sarah Bernstein

All in a Weekend11:33Montreal author Sarah Bernstein on the novel that got her nominated for both the Booker and Giller prizes

From her home in Scotland, Montreal's Sarah Bernstein talks about her haunting short novel "Study for Obedience", which is on the Booker Prize shortlist and the Giller Prize longlist.

The Next Chapter12:46Sarah Bernsteins Study for Obedience explores power and complicity

The novel, which is on both the 2023 Scotiabank Giller Prize and Booker Prize shortlists, follows a woman who moves to a remote town to be a housekeeper for her brother. When strange and sinister things begin to happen, the townspeople grow suspicious of her.