The Night Wages

Second edition, with a foreword by Stephen Jenkinson. The Night Wages is a leap into the mysteries, a deep conversation between father and daughter, a ragged travelogue of a night sea journey to the temple of Aphrodite. It’s a rumination on how we handle the volatility of romantic love, and how a parent communicates through stories a grief he cannot communicate any other way. The Night Wages has swiftly been awarded cult status amongst Shaw’s readership. A book for both lovers and grievers, many have taken to reading it aloud to loved ones. The book is cherished as a unique articulation of love’s deepest Underworld, Tony Hoagland claiming, “My jaw dropped, and is still dropped.” This is a classic of contemporary romanticism. Praise: “No other writer since Ted Hughes could even have imagined writing this book.” Mark Wormald, director of studies for English, Pembroke College, Cambridge “Martin Shaw is a modern-day bard.” Madeline Miller, author of Circe and winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction “Mysterious, haunting… searing mythic intelligence.” Kathleen Lee, author of All Things Tending Towards the Eternal “It’s Shakespearian. Pin-drop wonder.” John Densmore, The Doors “He channels story through rapture.” Tony Hoagland, author of The Art of Voice “A raft of magical stories that may just save our lives.” Timothy Liu, author of Don’t Go Back to Sleep “The Night Wages is Shaw at his vanquished best. A credible medicine man takes the dust of what couldn’t last into his hands, flings it up into the light.” Stephen Jenkinson, author of Come of Age: The Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble