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Amazon.co.uk Review
What Burns manages to capture, through comic exaggeration, is a real sense of how fragile the boundaries of normality are. The sectarian killings are matched by equally senseless domestic feuds and conflicts. Amelia's mother's observation that "she could see that beating the crap out of her sister was one thing; kicking an IRA man to death or nearly was another" offers a measure of just how distorted their values have become. Amelia reacts to the madness around her by internalising the violence, choosing to harm herself rather than others; first by becoming an anorexic and then an alcoholic--dealt with in a mercilessly hilarious chapter where all of the booze-addled characters continually forget what they have been talking about. The schizophrenic Vincent however, retreats further into actual madness creating a fantastical carnival city with "Come and Get Your Dead" stalls and, all too real, imaginary gunmen. It's achingly sad but as so often in this magically realised book, the mingling of tragedy and surreal comedy proves deeply affecting. Burns has produced a compassionate, bitterly acute, witty portrait of the darkest days of Northern Ireland's history. No Bones could well emerge as Belfast's Dubliners.--Travis Elborough
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‘Fresh, original…shot through with energy and drama right from the start.’ The Times
‘Amelia Lovett is just an ordinary little girl caught up in extraordinary circumstances. “No Bones” tracks the tragi-comic fortunes of the Lovett family of Belfast – the shrewdly mad mother; malevolent Mick; and dreamy Amelia, our narrator, who records their antics over the years. Anna Burns recreates the dark days beautifully and evokes the spirit of the times with compassion and understanding…”No Bones” gives an insight into a difficult and dangerous period of our history from a refreshing point of view and speaks the truth in a way that only a child can do.’ Irish News
‘The use of language is stunning, powerful and controlled…the story of Amelia’s struggle for sanity is compelling.’ Daily Telegraph
‘This account of a girl’s life growing up in Belfast during the Troubles, which examines madness and sanity and questions our interpretation of both, is scary. Scarily well written, too.’ Martina Devlin, Irish Independent
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The Troubles started on a Thursday. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Life starts bearing down on Amelia early. Even as we meet her in the first story as a seven year old with an interesting collection of caterpillars, she is living through nightly sieges on her home. This is followed by a shy interest in a long lost cousin, who is briefly found and befriended but then rejected by her family and subsequently killed by persons unknown. But perhaps most traumatic of all, is her loss by theft, and by a family member of her treasured hoard of rubber bullets.
We see the world through Amelia's eyes. She describes it as best she can, with childlike simplicity at first and then through the unconsciousness of addiction. It is a world where cars express the personalities of their owners and conversations with armed shrubberies are not uncommon. The world that emerges has surreal elements but a real emotional underpinning. Amelia records the cruel and the kind, the brutal and the banal. Despite their underwhelming minority, it is the small acts of kindness and the poignant moments we remember.
A nurse contrives to keep Vincent discreetly supplied with the red pens he requires to express on his own body, the horror of his father's murder.
A security guard with storm trooper tendencies, is transformed in a moment into an angel of mercy on Amelia's behalf.
A ghost searches in vain for an image of her live self in the house of her old friend, Amelia.
As a life strategy, survival is not enough. Amelia asks at one point, "Why can't I have what I want?", and although it is framed in the context of tinned beans versus Special K breakfast cereal, it is still a very good question. It is a question that Amelia keeps asking and on matters of greater and greater import.
Can Amelia stop surviving and start living in the real world. Can Vincent come to terms with his past so it stops intruding on his present? Is it possible to move from a position of "Nothing is possible", to one where "Nothing is impossible"? We passionately hope so.
We are introduced to the Lovett family... Read more
The subject is a very ordinary person caught up in extraodinary cicumstances, and her story is... Read more
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