The Believer

From the award-winning author of The Trauma Cleaner comes an exploration of the power of belief.

This book is about ghosts and gods and flying saucers and certainty in the absence of knowledge. Weaving together the stories of six extraordinary ordinary people, The Believer looks at the stories we tell ourselves to deal with the distance between the world as it is, and the world as we'd like it to be. How they can stunt us – or save us.

Some of the people you will meet believe in things most people don't. Ghosts. UFOs. Heaven and the Devil. The literal creation of the universe in six days.

Others believe in things most people would like to. Dying with autonomy. Facing one's own transgressions with an open heart.

Intensely personal and gorgeously written Krasnostein talks with her characteristic compassion and empathy to these believers – and finds out what happens when their beliefs crash into her own.

“A philosophical meditation on all aspects of faith and self-delusion, with the elegant phrasing of ideas that made The Trauma Cleaner such a delight.” GUARDIAN

“The author has the rare combination of skills that allows her to not only build enough trust and rapport with her interview subjects that they will reveal intimate details about their lives, but to also distil a person down to their essence and put that on the page in a way that is simultaneously informative, sensitive and enthralling…the true strength of The Believer is in each compellingly rendered story…[Those] who liked The Trauma Cleaner or Ramona Koval's A Letter To Layla will find much to appreciate in The Believer.' BOOKS+PUBLISHING