'Beautifully, psychologically exact. Leviston reveals, confronts, disarms and pares us from our unwitting, falser selves. Superbly written and fearlessly imagined fiction.' SARAH HALL

The first work of fiction from award-winning poet Frances Leviston offers a frighteningly perceptive slice of contemporary womanhood.

Ten women, all called Claire, are tangled up in complex power dynamics with their families, friends, and lovers. Though all are different ages, and leading different lives, each is haunted by the difficulty of living on her own terms, and by her capacity to harm and be harmed.

Claire is a teenaged babysitter left alone with a strange little girl and her imaginary friend. She is a woman trying to escape her elderly mother by employing an android carer. Claire is a young TV journalist wrecking her first big interview. Claire's boyfriend discovers more than he bargains for when he begins to read her diary.

And no matter her age or background, Claire is living in the shadow of a monstrous mother.

With startling insight and understanding, Frances Leviston offers a frighteningly perceptive slice of contemporary womanhood. In forensic, indelible prose that is often bleakly funny, The Voice in My Ear reveals a brilliant new voice in fiction - and invites us to consider our own place in the relationships that define us.

**A NEW STATESMAN BOOK TO READ IN 2020**