“The Damages is a probing, courageous work—a dance along the tightropes of memory, justice and love. It explodes the myth of the innocent bystander and ultimately celebrates the lifelong moral challenge of learning who you really are.”
—Sarah Henstra, author of The Red Word, winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction
“The Damages is an eerily sharp depiction of being self-conscious, self-obsessed, and eighteen in the late nineties, and just how painful it can be to face the past and question why one makes the choices they do when they’re young. Packed with insecurity, embarrassment, jealousy, and shame, each page made me anxious in the best possible way. Heart pounding, I couldn’t stop reading!” —Cedar Bowers, Scotiabank Giller Prize-longlisted author of Astra
“There is a skillful irony in a character so courageously honest about her lies. Genevieve Scott offers a view inside of a complicated woman from young adulthood to middle age, in refreshing and deceptively clean prose. The Damages takes a critical look at truth and perspective in a (post-) #MeToo era, calling into question the ways our personal truths are shaped by our pasts.” —Fawn Parker, Scotiabank Giller Prize-longlisted author of What We Both Know
“The Damages led me into a maze with a thread—and then just never let me go. This story builds with thrilling intensity through moral knots and human dilemmas, led by a brilliantly complex protagonist as she navigates her way through betrayal, guilt and culpability.”
—Charlotte Gill, author of Almost Brown
“The Damages is the most honest novel I’ve read in a long time. A propulsive story about the complexities of trust, the cruelties in relationships, and the space between meaning well and doing good. Genevieve Scott is a fresh, brilliant voice in fiction.”
—Leah Mol, author of Sharp Edges
“Genevieve Scott is a sophisticated writer, and The Damages is a sharp, multi-layered story about truth, lies, history and memory. I stayed up late to finish it! I was not disappointed: this is a complex and satisfying novel.”
—Sarah Selecky, author of Radiant Shimmering Light
“In the 1990s, women were going to university and joining the workforce in record numbers. Why, then, do many of us have conflicted feelings when looking back? This is one of the first novels I’ve read that does a brilliant job of unpacking the duplicity and dishonesty of the era. An intelligent and intense read about how power structures are passed on—The Damages held me, riveted, in a tight, icy grip.”—Claire Cameron, author of The Bear and The Last Neanderthal