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Chris Cleave

Everyone Brave is Forgiven

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Dear Reader:

I am thrilled to present you with an early copy of Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave.

In this magnificent novel, Chris has created unforgettable characters and put them in unforgiving circumstances — just as he did in Little Bee.

Everyone Brave is Forgiven begins in London in 1939, at the declaration of war, when a posh young socialite named Mary impetuously volunteers. Assigned a role teaching, Mary has barely memorized her students’ names before they’re evacuated to the countryside. But then some children return. The deformed, the disabled, the nonwhites. Mary fills her London classroom with a handful of children who were not welcomed into the homes of their countrymen even as the bombs begin to fall.

Mary’s relationship with a young black American boy named Zachary and her romantic entanglements — with her middle-class boss, Tom, and then with Tom’s debonair roommate, Alistair, who returns from the battlefront a haunted man — fuel the plot of this page-turner. As the war rages on, these characters endure everyday horrors and small serendipities in equal parts.

As with any Cleave novel, as you read you will laugh and you will cry, and you will find yourself immersed in a story that feels palpably real and important. I couldn’t be more excited to share this novel with you. Thank you in advance — I can’t wait to hear what you think.

Best,

Marysue Rucci

Vice President and Editor-in-Chief

Simon & Schuster, Inc.

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Voice 212 698 1234 Fax 212 698 7453

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Dear Reader:

One day during the harrowing siege of Malta my maternal grandfather, Captain Hill of the Royal Artillery, was assigned to mind Randolph Churchill, the brilliant but dissipated son of the British Prime Minister.

“Look after him, David,” said the Major General who conferred this extraordinary duty, “and if at all possible keep him out of trouble. ”

The novel began with me wondering what that instruction meant, exactly. The Axis had maintained a two-year stranglehold on the island of Malta, reducing garrison and islanders alike to a state of advanced starvation. Into this theatre poor Randolph was parachuted, groggy and overweight. It was hot and he wanted to go swimming, so my grandfather took him to the beach the officers used, where a thin strip had been left between the mines and the barbed wire entanglements.

Randolph was visiting Malta to recruit for the fledgling SAS. The prospect on offer to the starving officers was hard to refuse: full rations and a ticket off the island, in exchange for becoming a commando. Having helped Randolph to shop this deal around, my grandfather felt it would be churlish not to volunteer himself, and was later dropped behind enemy lines in North Africa.

Randolph was known to be fantastically brave, prone to strolling through gunfire to deliver orders. On Malta he might cheerfully get himself killed or — much worse — captured. In the pivotal phase of World War II, the Prime Minister’s son would have made a hostage of some significance. My grandfather had been issued with a good education, a Webley Mk IV revolver and a delightfully ambiguous order.