In Quiet Time, Grace is growing up in rural, coastal Newfoundland with two siblings and a pair of self-absorbed, artist parents. Grace’s father is a writer who warns the children not to bother him when he’s working, and for good measure has placed a creepy mask on his office door. Grace’s mother, a painter and sculptor, often goes missing, abandoning the family and staying absent for days or weeks at a time. Grace, preternaturally observant, is also a creative spirit who wants to be a writer, though she gets little encouragement at home and, after confiding in her English teacher and seeking his praise and approval, finds herself in a sexually abusive relationship. Katherine Alexandra Harvey’s debut novel chronicles Grace’s descent into addiction and mental distress, and her eventual recovery. At the age of seventeen, she meets Jack, a painter and friend of her mother. Jack also sells weed and consumes a variety of addictive substances, to which he introduces Grace. Grace, craving attention, falls in love with Jack, and over the course of their volatile, years-long relationship, becomes addicted to opiates and booze. Their lust- and drug-fueled partnership reaches its climax when Grace delivers a stillborn son. And it’s not long before Grace has attained new depths of despondency, resumes cutting herself and survives a suicide attempt. By this time Jack, whose painting career is flourishing, has left Grace for another woman. Harvey’s novel is unsparing and uncompromising and the story it tells is bleak. But Grace, alone with her grief and hitting bottom, somehow summons the strength to seek treatment and get herself admitted to hospital, pulling herself back from the brink just in time. Quiet Time, Harvey’s debut novel--difficult, disturbing, sometimes deeply unpleasant but always psychologically convincing--is also a strangely uplifting and triumphant work of gritty realism. With this novel, Katherine Alexandra Harvey announces herself as a fearless talent worth watching. ( )