- Paperback: 300 pages
- Publisher: Fourth Estate (28 April 2011)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 000743572X
- ISBN-13: 978-0007435722
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.6 x 2.2 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,580,160 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Wide Open
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Product Description
Review
‘Wide Open is word perfect, witty and ironic…..The author's focus on marginal lives and on the importance of the dispossessed and the apparently mad persuade us finally that Wide Open possesses a manic energy and taut eloquence worthy of a large, serious and global readership.’ Impac judging panel
‘Razor-sharp comic sensibility and flawless structure.’ Suzi Feay, Independent on Sunday
‘It combines Nicola Barker's trademark qualities of offbeat comedy and quirky characterisation with an emotional darkness and depth that marked it, for many critics, as her breakthrough …The novel mixes an eccentric island backdrop – a Barker speciality – with a cast of intriguing oddballs, pin-sharp comic dialogue, and a sinister undercurrent of violence and abuse.’ Independent
Product Description
The novel for which Nicola Barker, one of our times most original, funny and anarchic writers, won the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2000.
‘Wide Open’ is set on the strange Isle Of Sheppey, which pokes out into into the estuary of the River Thames. On this forgotten misty island there is a nudist beach, a nature reserve, a wild boar farm and not much else. The landscape is bare, but the characters are brimming with life. There's Luke, who specialises in dot-to-dot pornography, and lippy Lily, just 17 and full of outrageous anger. They are joined by Jim and the 8-year-old, Nathan, as well as the mysterious figure of Ronnie, who though plain has dark, telling eyes.
Each one is drifting in turbulent, emotional currents, fighting the rip tide of a past, bleak with secrets and fear. Years later adult Nathan works in a Lost Property department, an irony that is almost brutal in its compassion.
A novel about stripping off layers of prejudice and lies, about the possibility of redemption, and laying bare the truth. It is also about coming to terms with the past, and about the fantasies people construct in order to protect their fragile inner selves.
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