Home
/
Fiction
/
Highway Blue
Highway Blue
Aug 12, 2025 8:18 PM

Author:Ailsa McFarlane

Highway Blue

'Holds you captive like a blues song' Olivia Sudjic

In San Padua you can never get the ocean out of your brain.

Anne Marie's husband Cal left her on their first anniversary. Two years later and she is still adrift, living a precarious life of shift work and shared apartments.

When he shows up on the doorstep, clearly in trouble, she reluctantly agrees to a drink. But later that night a gun goes off in an alley near the shore and the young couple flee together, crammed into a beat-up car with their broken past, desperate to fill their lives on this long stretch of road under hot skies.

______________________

PRAISE FOR HIGHWAY BLUE

'Poignant, moving and cinematic' An Yu

'Beautiful' Observer

'Unforgettable' Elaine Feeney

'Gripping' Stylist

Reviews

Poignant, moving, and cinematic, this is a story imbued with love and loss that feels at once distantly dreamlike and vividly recognisable.

—— An Yu, author of BRAISED PORK

Highway Blue is a beautiful, inspired rendering of the on-the-road journey. At its core is an unforgettable protagonist in Anne Marie. McFarlane has written an irresistible story of love and life's meanderings. A very gifted writer, I was entranced.

—— Elaine Feeney, author of AS YOU WERE

Ailsa McFarlane's prose combines the razor sharp truth telling of Ottessa Moshfegh with the troubled heart of Raymond Carver, using plain language to conjure a shockingly intense way of seeing. I've never read anything quite like it.

—— Emma Copley Eisenberg, author of THE THIRD RAINBOW GIRL

I loved Highway Blue - a dark, glimmering, journey deep into modern America on a knife edge between love and dependence.

—— Rosie Price, author of WHAT RED WAS

Hypnotic, stylish, cinematic: Highway Blue holds you captive like a blues song or incantation.

—— Olivia Sudjic, author of ASYLUM ROAD

In Highway Blue, the richness and pathos of the ordinary is heightened by the private mysteries of McFarlane's innocent fugitives as they run from both the law and themselves. It is a harrowing journey, but one filled with unexpected kindnesses and the illuminating effect of transformation. I so admire it.

—— Susanna Moore, author of IN THE CUT

If one of America's many complicated attributes is its ability to let whole lives pass without being seen, Ailsa McFarlane reminds us that language can bring these same lives into stark and penetrating relief. Highway Blue is a road novel, a love story, a coming of age, but with sentences so sharply wrought, characters so achingly precise, that it feels new and fresh and utterly alive.

—— Lynn Steger Strong, author of WANT

McFarlane deftly pulls the strings of her cinematic plot, making sure it never descends into melodrama. Instead, the story remains gripping, yet thought-provoking - a poignant comment on the modern condition.

—— Stylist

Highway Blue is a beautiful, sun-drenched road novel... A novel that's in love with the idea of America, both contemporary in its concerns and deeply nostalgic

—— Observer

An elegant meditation on many things - history, inheritance, language, trauma, how the self tricks the self, defiance ... All the Flowers Kneeling maps the journey past bewilderment, to knowing, to, finally, the mystery of unknowing, where ... the life we get to choose for ourselves begins

—— Carl Phillips , author of PALE COLORS IN A TALL FIELD

Ravishing ... Formally inventive, psychologically acute ... Tran's debut demonstrates the capacity of poetry to tell the truths which will set you free

—— Dana Levin , author of BANANA PALACE

All the Flowers Kneeling is a gorgeous debut ... Out of violences intimate and imperial, out of survival and self-fashioning, Paul Tran sculpts new forms to contain all. This book is a richness. What a stellar poet for our day

—— Solmaz Sharif , author of LOOK

This utterly joyful novel takes you on an unforgettable journey with characters you wish you could meet in real life... I loved The People on Platform 5 even more than The Authenticity Project - it's glorious

—— Eva Carter

This book is bursting with the kindness of strangers, and I was bursting with hope by the end of it

—— Jenny Bayliss

Clare Pooley is the queen of feel-good fiction. She takes relatable situations and characters and somehow makes them magical. The People of Platform 5 is funny, tender and true-to-life while also being thought-provoking. It was magnificent and a joy to read

—— Phaedra Patrick

The People on Platform 5 is nothing short of sheer and utter delight. It presents the best of humanity - the sweet and bashful kindness and generosity that lives in all of us. I can't think of a more joyful book!

—— Jesse Q. Sutanto, bestselling author of Dial A For Aunties

Heartwarming, funny, a delicious dive into the profound and ridiculous modern world in which we live. Clare Pooley reminds us why we need each other

—— Tara Conklin, New York Times bestselling author

Pooley delivers not only acerbic, enchanting Iona but a compelling, tangled cast of quirky, complicated characters so engaging, it's enough to make you miss crowded commuter trains

—— Laurie Frankel, New York Times bestselling author

This feel-good ensemble story will bring joy to readers who loved Anxious People and Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine-not to mention fans of quirky London-set fare such as Ted Lasso...a warm, fun pick-me-up of a book

—— Mary Laura Philpott

Clare Pooley has found a delightful way to bring home the point that we need each other

—— Kelly Corrigan, New York Times bestselling author

Leaving you with that fuzzy feeling you want from a feel-good book

—— Woman & Home

Entertaining and uplifting

—— Good Housekeeping

Filled with delightful characters... this heart-warming book explores relationships and the dilemmas of everyday life

—— Candis

Tackling many relevant issues, it's a heart-warming read

—— Heat

Poignant, totally joyful, this is a great read

—— Fabulous

A feel-good read, with great characters to care about, it takes current issues seriously but adds plenty of humour

—— Choice

[It leaves] the reader with that fuzzy feeling you want from a feel-good book. Fans of her previous hit, The Authenticity Project, will not be disappointed

—— Woman's Weekly

A feel-good tale about the power of real-life connections

—— Sun

You can always rely on Pooley to deliver not just wonderful, lively characters but a story that leaves you feeling uplifted and hopeful

—— CultureFly

Batuman has taken what made The Idiot so brilliant, distilled it, and created an equally brilliant new work. Either/Or is unbridled joy.

—— Big Issue

Funny... Unforgettable... Batuman is particularly good on sex and sexual politics... The star feature is the narration... garrulous, rambunctious... full of baroque riffs and digressions.

—— Claire Lowdown , Spectator

A fresh voice is a rare thing, and Elif Batuman is one such.

—— Times Literary Supplement, *Books of the Year*

Either/Or is extremely funny and delightfully ludic, as it probes the very act of reading from the point of view of confused university student Selin.

—— Anakana Schofield, Irish Times, Books of the Year 2022

I was desperately looking forward to Elif Batuman's Either/Or, and it more than lived up to it.

—— Samir Chadha , White Review, *Books of the Year*

Re-encountering Selin...felt like being reunited with an old friend.

—— Helen Charman , White Review, *Books of the Year*

Hilarious.

—— Alice Hattrick , White Review, *Books of the Year*

I greatly enjoyed the comic zing of Elif Batuman's delightful Either/Or

—— Megan Hunter , White Review, *Books of the Year*

Witty, intelligent and funny... [Selin's] inner monologue is addictive enough to read a thousand more pages of, and I can only cross my fingers that this isn't the last instalment of the series.

—— Crack

Just as funny and self-aware and clever as The Idiot.

—— Jessica Zhan Mei Yu , White Review, *Books of the Year*

Funny, wry and insightful

—— The Times, *Summer Reads of 2023*

Laugh out loud…hilarious and thoughtful

—— Times Literary Supplement, *Books of the Year*
Comments
Welcome to zzdbook comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.zzdbook.com All Rights Reserved