- Paperback: 176 pages
- Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd (10 May 2007)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 022407699X
- ISBN-13: 978-0224076999
- Product Dimensions: 21 x 13.4 x 1.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 478,671 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
LRB
'Riley's novels have been stylish and fresh...she's shown courage in sticking to her subject.'
The Times
'Riley writes with a Woolf-ish exactitude... A brilliant and
beautiful novel'
beautiful novel'
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I have read all three of Riley's novels with an ebbing degree of interest and a mounting sense of the emperor's (empress's?) new clothes. Although the books' covers are liberally covered with praise from various reviews I can't help but want to shout "Look! She's naked!". You can stand this sparse kind of booze-sodden misery prose for a couple of novels whilst a young writer gets it out of his/her system but three is pushing it.
I don't care about these two characters and they deserve each other; they are self-indulgent and boring, if you met them you would advise them to pull themselves together, get a good night's sleep and wash their hair.
Riley's prose is a pared down as it gets, disengaged to the point of autism. Some people think this is mightly clever and stylish, three novels on it looks as if she's trying too hard and writes out of lofty compulsion rather than enjoyment.
I have heard her read from this novel and it was pretty uninspiring, a bit like watching an eight-year-old slopping around in her mother's shoes. Apparently her next novel is called The Sex Maniacs and is based in Liverpool, St Petersberg and Indianapolis. Can't wait...
I don't care about these two characters and they deserve each other; they are self-indulgent and boring, if you met them you would advise them to pull themselves together, get a good night's sleep and wash their hair.
Riley's prose is a pared down as it gets, disengaged to the point of autism. Some people think this is mightly clever and stylish, three novels on it looks as if she's trying too hard and writes out of lofty compulsion rather than enjoyment.
I have heard her read from this novel and it was pretty uninspiring, a bit like watching an eight-year-old slopping around in her mother's shoes. Apparently her next novel is called The Sex Maniacs and is based in Liverpool, St Petersberg and Indianapolis. Can't wait...
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Gwendoline Riley's weary tone, coupled with descriptions that make you feel hungry and desolate at the same time are what I love about her stories.
Her debut 'Cold Water' made me excited about new writing, and her second 'Sick Notes' was also good. This, her third novel moves from grey and murky Manchester to the America, where Natalie goes to meet Joshua Spassky, a man she's had a fling (made of up of pondering soul-searching and drinking) with for five years.
It was as moody as I expected, with grumpy characters who are dissatisfied with their lives, but seem impotent when it comes to making sense of them. It's a feeling that my generation seem to have invented - well, maybe not invented, but maybe made more public that previous angsty 20 somethings.
Maybe it's because nowadays we wait for marriage and kids (or maybe don't choose them at all), and have many more years of navel gazing even after we're out of teens, but Joshua and Natalie reminded me of people I've met and moaned with, and worried about.
Ultimately, although this is a good book, it isn't a great book, and I'm not sure I'd have sought it out if it hadn't have been for Riley's previous. There seemed to be some kind of statement or magic missing, but the hopeful pay-off in the last chapter made it worthwile.
Her debut 'Cold Water' made me excited about new writing, and her second 'Sick Notes' was also good. This, her third novel moves from grey and murky Manchester to the America, where Natalie goes to meet Joshua Spassky, a man she's had a fling (made of up of pondering soul-searching and drinking) with for five years.
It was as moody as I expected, with grumpy characters who are dissatisfied with their lives, but seem impotent when it comes to making sense of them. It's a feeling that my generation seem to have invented - well, maybe not invented, but maybe made more public that previous angsty 20 somethings.
Maybe it's because nowadays we wait for marriage and kids (or maybe don't choose them at all), and have many more years of navel gazing even after we're out of teens, but Joshua and Natalie reminded me of people I've met and moaned with, and worried about.
Ultimately, although this is a good book, it isn't a great book, and I'm not sure I'd have sought it out if it hadn't have been for Riley's previous. There seemed to be some kind of statement or magic missing, but the hopeful pay-off in the last chapter made it worthwile.
10 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Rileys command of language, which is wonderful, minimal sentences and unusual images create mood and feeling within in a few pages, and her perfectly formed prose are reason enough to read this slim volume.
The story tosses and turns between hope and despair. The book is occupied not only with the vivid main characters, but all the people who gravitate around them.
A must.
The story tosses and turns between hope and despair. The book is occupied not only with the vivid main characters, but all the people who gravitate around them.
A must.
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