The narrative voice is fluent and assured, with an eye for detail and original images: a cup of tea is “crunchy with limescale”; clearing up after one of their father’s rages is “rebuilding the set on which their performance of normal life takes place”. The subterranean climax introduces a note of the uncanny that doesn’t quite convince, and the ending feels unresolved, though perhaps this is in keeping with the idea that the “möbius strip” of complex grief does not allow for tidy closure. But Deep Down is an accomplished debut from a writer who is equally adept at handling comedy and tragedy, and the blurred edges between the two. This all sounds dreadfully serious. And the novel is a serious and very accomplished examination of what it means to love and grieve for someone who might seem unlovable. It wrestles, too, with the timeless question of how to form one’s own distinct adult identity in the shadow of a difficult parent. As the pandemic gathered pace in March 2020, the FT published an interview with the psychotherapist and grief expert Julia Samuel. One of her five tips for coping with the anxiety and turmoil caused by Covid-19 was to “give yourself intentional treats (preferably not tons of alcohol)”. A human’s subterranean mirror image, like that of a city, promises transformation – but more often than not, we realise that our greatest discoveries were always there above ground, before our very eyes. Billie and Tom have just lost their father. It should be a time to comfort each other, but there's always been a distance to their relationship. Determined to change this, Billie boards a flight to her brother in Paris.

Imogen West-Knights: I wanted to write about a brother and sister, because I feel like I read a lot about sisters, and also about brothers, but not so much about mixed-gender sibling relationships. I feel like they’re not really given primacy in people’s imagination or in fiction. But they’re really important. And if you’re doing it right, that’s the longest relationship in your life, with your sibling. However, things have now opened up. And while the mood swings and teariness are gone, treat brain persists. For lots of people I spoke to, the same was true. Why hasn’t it gone away? Is that a problem, or not? “We’re still depleted from repetitively doing the same thing all the time,” says Samuel, “so I think treats still feel very exciting.”Deep Down begins, in narrative terms, on an aeroplane, with Billie dropping her suitcase on an old woman’s head. Following the death of her father, flying out to Paris seemed the natural thing to do, and nobody should count on travelling by budget airline without accruing additional trauma en route. These treats can act as a temporary band-aid over a deeper need. When we are very tired — say, because we’re juggling homeschooling and a job — what we might really need is more sleep. But if we can’t get it, a more easily available source of comfort might be chocolate or wine. She reads it twice, and wonders why he doesn’t just say 10 if he means 10, then hopes it isn’t a typo for 12. I am a writer and freelance journalist based in London. I write about culture, politics and the climate, and have pieces published in the Guardian, the Financial Times, the New York Times, Slate, ArtReview, the Times Literary Supplement, the i paper, the Times, Vice, the Economist’s 1843 magazine, Port magazine, the Telegraph, the New Statesman, Little White Lies, and Another Gaze. Communication issues are also central to the novel. It seems to spin around what’s on the surface, what’s being concealed and how to break through those barriers.

I feel like you hint at the father’s violence, but it’s mostly quite hidden or off-stage. In lots of novels about abuse or trauma this can be more front-loaded, whereas here it feels less about the violence itself and more about how Billie and Tom respond to it.Editorial director Rhiannon Smith acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Kat Aitken at United Agents at auction. Deep Down will be published in April 2023 in print, e-book and audio. I wanted to speak to some experts about treat brain, to understand where it came from and at what point it might become a problem. Liam Delaney, professor of behavioural science at the LSE, says there is “definitely a cluster of people who are in the sort of indulgent pattern you describe”, and points to data showing that alcohol sales in supermarkets rose sharply in 2020.

She said: “Having an editor as sharp as Rhiannon to work on my book with is more than I could ever have hoped for when I began writing it. I’m so excited, and so grateful to my wonderful agent and friend Kat Aitken for believing that I could get here.” Billie’s dad has died and she’s just dropped her suitcase on an old woman’s head. Guilty, embarrassed, in tears, and trapped on the tarmac of Paris’ airport, this is how we first meet Billie – one of the two central characters of Imogen West-Knights’s debut novel Deep Down . The other is Billie’s brother, Tom, who she is staying with in the immediate aftermath of their father’s death. Pivoting between Billie and Tom’s perspectives, the novel follows each sibling as they attempt to bridge the emotional gulf between them while grappling with differing responses to their dad’s death, and how his past actions continue to haunt them.I made a halfhearted attempt to justify why I was watching trashy reality TV. She did the same about her ­midweek takeaway. Sure, she didn’t need one, but she was stressed by the upheaval and, anyway, she’d been getting midweek takeaways pretty often since the pandemic began. “It’s treat brain,” she said, shrugging. Noel Bell, a psychotherapist, says the pandemic has also shifted our perception of what is a need versus what is an indulgence. A home exercise bike before the pandemic: an indulgence. During the pandemic: perhaps closer to a need. Billie and her brother Tom have both, in their own ways, sought to find themselves and come to terms with family trauma in the French capital. Here, finally, was a term for the mindset I had noticed myself slipping into over the past 18 months. Before coronavirus, I had relatively good impulse control. I would treat myself to an unhealthy meal or a lazy afternoon or a new pair of trousers, but only occasionally. That was something I really worried about with the dad, because by not having him there a lot of the time to speak for himself, I didn’t want him to end up being this uncomplicated baddie.