The Revisionists by Michelle Johnston

Gripping, propulsive and intelligent, The Revisionists is a tour de force, an absorbing, unputdownable novel about ambition – and how we curate our own stories and rescript our memories in order to survive.

Upper East Side, Manhattan, 2023: Christine Campbell, former journalist, turns on the television to watch a documentary paying homage to her Pulitzer Prize-shortlisted coverage of the unrest in 1999 in the North Caucasus. She is newly widowed, wealthy, and attempting to write a memoir celebrating her bold life and significant achievements in writing about the silencing of women during conflict.

But truth has a way of resurfacing, even when buried deep beneath money, memory, and reinvention. When Dr Frankie Pearson, Christine’s oldest – and estranged – friend, knocks on her door, the pair must reconcile their memories and come to terms with the far-reaching and disastrous decisions they both made over twenty years ago. What really happened in that small mountain village in Dagestan in the dying days of the millennium, while Christine was hellbent on getting the scoop of a lifetime?

An elegant, thrilling and brilliantly compelling novel of the consequences of the conflict between a person’s principles and their desire for acclaim, The Revisionists examines the malleability of memory and the slippery nature of the truth – and the lengths that people will go to avoid facing both.

02 Jul 2025
 

The Revisionists: A thrilling and utterly compelling novel from the author of Tiny Uncertain Miracles, perfect for readers of Sarah Winman and Heather Rose by Michelle Johnston ISBN 9781460762721