All the Little Bird-Hearts: Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2023

All the Little Bird-Hearts follows a mother and daughter whose settled life is disrupted when a charismatic couple move in next door. Set within a household shaped by routine, rules and the shifting pressures of family life, the story traces what happens when carefully maintained boundaries begin to loosen.

Sunday Forrester lives in the home she grew up in with her sixteen-year-old daughter, Dolly. She handles daily life with unusual precision: on quiet days she eats only white foods, turns to an etiquette handbook to manage social situations, and retreats into a private collection of Sicilian folklore. Dolly is the one part of Sunday’s world she cannot fully control. When new neighbours Vita and Rollo arrive, their charm draws the two households into each other’s homes and offers Sunday a feeling of being loved and accepted. Over time, however, Sunday senses something darker beneath their polish, as Vita’s desperation and entitled ambition begin to centre on Dolly.

Key details

• Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2023

Synopsis

Sunday Forrester lives with her sixteen-year-old daughter, Dolly, in the house where she grew up. Her life is governed by strict routines, including eating only white foods on quiet days, and she uses an etiquette handbook and Sicilian folklore as both guidance and escape.

Vita and Rollo, the new neighbours, quickly become entwined in Sunday’s carefully ordered world, drawing her into an unfamiliar closeness. As their influence grows, Sunday begins to recognise a troubling undercurrent beneath their charm, driven by Vita’s determination to have a daughter like Dolly for herself.