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Delirious

'Wilkins shows us old age, old love, and old loss. A wonderful novel' - Claire Fuller

By: Damien Wilkins

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Paperback | 11 August 2026 | Edition Number 1

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THE AWARD-WINNING, WORD-OF-MOUTH NEW ZEALAND BESTSELLER

NOMINATED FOR THE DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD

WINNER OF NEW ZEALAND'S JANN MEDLICOTT ACORN PRIZE

'I was dazzled by this book's intimacy, truth and complexity. It has everything I truly love in fiction'

Charlotte Wood, author of Stone Yard Devotional

'With precise emotional acuity, Wilkins shows us old age, old love, and old loss. A wonderful novel'

Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground

'A superb book - Damien Wilkins writes so movingly about grief and loss'

Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures

It's time. Mary, an ex cop, and her husband Pete, a former librarian, have decided to move into a retirement village. Selling their beloved house should be a clean break, but the past, it seems, has other ideas. A detective calls with new information about the case of their son, Will, who died in an accident forty years earlier. Mary finds herself returning to the last months of her sister's shortened life. And Pete is haunted by memories of his late mother, who developed delirium and never recovered.

An unforgettable novel of rare power and grace, Delirious poses the questions we all eventually face, if we're lucky - or unlucky - enough. How do we care for others? How do we face each new phase of life? And how do we ever cope?

'Delirious made me laugh, think, weep and actually beat my breast. A masterpiece'

Elizabeth Knox, author of The Absolute Book

'Delirious rearranged me. Utterly absorbing, moving, brilliant'

Emily Perkins, author of Lioness

Industry Reviews

A New Zealand novel of grace and humanity. How does Wilkins do it? These are flawed and immensely satisfying characters - you close your eyes at the faulty, circuitous routes they take. Delirious is a marvel of a book

Delirious is a superb book - Damien Wilkins writes so movingly about grief and loss, the attrition of a long marriage and the humiliations of ageing. And it's all so cleanly and honestly done. There's no false comfort here; and yet there is the comfort of reality faced with dignity. Every observation, every psychological insight resonates. There's not a dull paragraph or a lazy image.

Funny, sharp, sad and profound, Delirious made me laugh, think, weep and actually beat my breast. A masterpiece

Delirious rearranged me. Utterly absorbing, moving, brilliant.

I found it amazing that a book about traumatic events was also so funny, and even at times whimsical. . . . I like it when a novel reflects life so closely and this novel is so close to life it's almost psychedelic with it: so much detail, and beauty and harshness and weirdness. - Spinoff

This is just a beautifully powerful, wonderful book

I was dazzled by this book's intimacy, truth and complexity. It has everything I truly love in fiction

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