The Recovery House

What a beautiful book, it’s like a hug, or a gentle holding of a hand – Michaela Coel
I was deeply moved by The Recovery House, how its portrayal of crisis and meaning, faith and human connection is rendered with such precision and immediacy; each vignette feels like a small gift, told in a voice that will linger with me – Sophie Mackintosh
There are writers who both survive things and understand them. Brutal, precise, and somehow full of light. – Yrsa Daley-Ward
As disarming as it is gripping, The Recovery House is a fluid, bruised and beautiful brooch of a book – Inua Ellams
Truly, I think the business of blurbing isn’t fit to do this book justice…The Recovery House is a work of the soul. It’s some of the most earnest, beautiful writing I’ve come across in years - I feel lucky to have read it, and deeply inspired. – Jo Hamya
Derek Owusu is the real deal, and The Recovery House is his best work yet; a brutal, painful, vulnerable book rendered with rare poise and style – Kieran Goddard
I’ll hold up my hands and say it, I thought Owusu had written his masterwork already, I even wrote as much, but in this latest novel he homes in on everything that makes his writing so rich, emotional and wise, distilling it all into a finely textured work of tenderness, love, camaraderie and human resilience. We’re held securely in his palm for the duration of these scant pages. This is tender restraint charged with love and compassion. This is our uncharted humanity turned to face the world. This is truly us. – Courttia Newland
I would like to call The Recovery House a masterclass in storytelling, voice and what a novel should be, but this kind of talent can’t be taught. I was mesmerised from start to finish… I’ve never read anything like it and I don’t think I ever will. The Recovery House is perfect - it doesn’t beg you to feel anything but you feel it all regardless. The characters are real living people to whom you find yourself attached, The Recovery House itself is all around, the doors and chairs and tables all physical things you can reach out and touch - all possible because Derek Owusu has created a story that is impossible to read without living within it, impossible to put down without reaching out for it again and impossible to forget without realising that it’s like nothing else you’ll ever read, because it’s the best thing you’ve ever read – Ore Agbaje-Williams
The Recovery House starts as an arresting, nuanced portrait of an artist in crisis, and ends as a finely wrought exploration of how we create meaning in the darkest periods of our lives. I loved it – Krystelle Bamford
In THE RECOVERY HOUSE, Derek Owusu writes movingly about attention as a form of devotion, about bearing witness as a mode of care. I loved this beautiful book that explores the ways reading and writing make and unmake us – Sarah Bernstein

Derek Owusu is a writer, poet, and podcaster from North London. He discovered his passion for literature at the age of twenty-three while studying exercise science at university. Unable to afford a change of degree, Derek began reading voraciously and sneaking into English Literature lectures at the University of Manchester. Derek edited and contributed to Safe: On Black British Men Reclaiming Space. That Reminds Me, his first solo work, won the Desmond Elliott Prize 2020.

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