Greetings readers,
Having just completed my last week of lectures, i.e. my last week of compulsory reading, I am absolutely buzzing at the prospect of reading just for myself. I buy books all the time, some people have an ASOS addiction, mine is browsing Amazon for books that I never have time to read. Finally the time has come!
My latest book-splurge came after watching The Culture Show's top twelve novelists. A panel of judges shortlisted novelists who had had their first novel published in the last two years, and compiled a list of writers who may become the future, classic novelists of our age. Similar lists have been compiled by Granta magazine, launching the careers of Ian McEwan, Sarah Waters, Zadie Smith and Kazuo Ishiguro.
The shortlist consists of:
David Abbott, The Upright Piano Player
Deborah Kay Davis, True Things About Me
Eleanor Thom, The Tin-kin
Adam Haslett, Union Atlantic
Evie Wyld, After The Fire, A Still Small Voice
Rebecca Hunt, Mr Chartwell
Jim Powell, The Breaking of Eggs
Samantha Harvey, The Wilderness
Stephen Kelman, Pigeon English
Ned Beauman, Boxer, Beetle
Jenn Ashworth, A Kind of Intimacy
Anna Richards, Little Gods.
I'm still waiting for a couple to arrive but this week I started Jenn Ashworth's novel. It took me one evening, a commute and a morning's breakfast to finish this exceptional book. It is written from the point of view of Annie, an obese woman with a troubled past, who moves house and attempts to build relationships with her neighbours. This book questions all our perceptions of narrative integrity and the reader's own reactions to a character that might at first seem so easy to pity. Addicted to self-help books and romance novels, who spends hours fashioning cheese and pickled onion hedgehogs for house-warming parties, Annie might at first seem as a figure for the reader to dismiss or consider as pathetically clumsy. However, as the reality of her actions unfold, Annie proves herself as a figure that is anything but harmless, whilst at the same time appealing to the reader through her awkward endeavours in socially awkward activities we are all too familiar with. The prose is charming, compelling and fast-paced as we are drawn in and then rapidly repelled from Annie's awkward existence.
This book depicts a neighbourhood living with the neighbour from hell through Annie's charming, normative voice and causes us to question what exactly makes the monster? A funny, biting, satirical black comedy, it's an absolute must read.
No comments:
Post a Comment