A "chilling, riveting, heartbreaking" ( The New York Times Book Review ) novel of parental turmoil, from Matt Haig, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Midnight Library and How to Stop Time. Don’t miss Matt Haig’s new novel The Life Impossible , coming September 2024 Terence Cave, owner of Cave Antiques, has already experienced the dual tragedies of his mother's suicide and his wife's murder when his teenage son, Reuben, is killed in a grotesque accident. His remaining child, Bryony, has always been the family's golden girl and Terence comes to realize that his one duty in life is to "protect" her from the world's dark forces. But as he starts to follow his grieving daughter's movements and enforce a draconian set of rules, his love for Bryony becomes a possessive force that leads to destruction. The Possession of Mr. Cave is a chilling investigation into the relationship between adults and teenagers -- and a captivating, tautly paced story that chronicles one man's descent into madness. "A compelling book; a page-turner in the best sense of the word." ―John Burnside, The Guardian "Chilling, riveting, heart-breaking." ― New York Times Book Review "A devastating portrait of one man's relentless self-destruction." ― The Times (London) "Cave's grotesque zeal commands the reader's almost voyeuristic attention, and delivers an enthralling addition to the literature of demented protagonists." ― The Independent ( London) "A sleek, enthralling novel that tries to wrestle with the human condition." ― Literary Review (London) "Matt Haig is a writer for children and adults who is adept at digging into the human heart."  ― Sunday Times (London) "Haig writes exquisitely from the perspective of the heart-sore outsider, but at their most moving his novels reveal the unbearable beauty of ordinary life." ― The Guardian Matt Haig is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Midnight Library and The Comfort Book , the internationally bestselling memoirs Reasons to Stay Alive and Notes on a Nervous Planet , and five other novels, including The Dead Fathers Club and The Possession of Mr. Cave , and several award-winning children's books. His work has been translated into more than forty languages. Table of Contents Title Page Copyright Page Dedication     Acknowledgements By the same author The Last Family in England The Dead Fathers Club Shadow Forest VIKING Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa   Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England       Copyright © Matt Haig, 2008 All rights reserved   Publisher’s Note This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.   eISBN : 978-1-101-02867-4     Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.   The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrightable materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. To Andrea If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves. Carl Gustav Jung, The Development of Personality   But the deep deep tragedies of infancy, as when the child’s hands were unlinked for ever from his mother’s neck, or his lips for ever from his sister’s kisses, these remain lurking below all, and these lurk to the last. Thomas De Quincey, ‘Suspiria de Profundis: The Palimp