The Delusions

Brought to you by Penguin.

The outstanding new novel from the prize-winning author of The Panopticon, Luckenbooth and Ootlin

Edi is facing a disciplinary since her 'incident' at work. Forty-seven years in Admin processing the newly dead is not how she foresaw eternity.

In Arrivals, the newly dead must take the stages in order: first, extract delusion; second, answer HR's questionnaire truthfully. Yet who among them can truly face who they are? Who may never pass at all? As leaderboard numbers begin to rise at unprecedented rates, rumours begin to fly. Humans are about to become a banned race. The earth is going to be repossessed.

As chaos descends, Edi hopes this might finally be the moment she has waited for, so she might see her son again who she was forced to leave on Earth when she died. Edi wants to be the one waiting for him, even if HR protocols forbid it. Looking out at the millions of newly dead arriving, Edi has one question - what might any of us truly be willing to do for those we love at the doors of eternity?

Against a spectacular backdrop of stars, constellations and comets, a mass extinction event begins to unfurl watched by the entire universe as Processing, the largest soul terminus in existence, decides it is now time to take matters wholly back into its own hands. With reflections on love, defiance and light, The Delusions is a story of profound human connection, on an unprecedented scale.

'Brilliant, original, daring, a 1984 for the afterlife' Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting

'Wholly wondrous ... I'm improved for having read it' Niall Griffiths, author of Broken Ghosts

© Jenni Fagan 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026

© 2026 Penguin (Lydbog): 9781804958995

Udgivelsesdato

Lydbog: 19. marts 2026