Darkmans by Nicola Barker
From the author of The Yips and Burley Cross Postbox Theft comes an epic novel of startling originality. If history is a sick joke which keeps on repeating, then who keeps on telling it? Could it be John Scogin, Edward IV's jester, whose favourite skit was to burn people alive? Or could it be Andrew Boarde, physician to Henry VIII, who wrote John Scogin's biography? Or could it be a Kurd called Gaffar whose days are blighted by an unspeakable terror of salad? Or a beautiful bulimic with brittle bones? Or a man who guards Beckley Woods with a Samurai sword and a pregnant terrier? Darkmans is a very modern book, set in ridiculously modern Ashford, about two old-fashioned subjects: love and jealousy. And the main character? The past, creeping up on the present and whispering something quite dark into its ear. Darkmans is the third of Nicola Barker's visionary Thames Gateway novels. Following Wide Open (winner Dublin IMPAC award 2000) and Behindlings it confirms one of Britain's most original literary talents.
Praise for Nicola Barker: 'Dazzling!She celebrates the complexity of human experience' The Times 'Insanely inventive. Her vision of a marginal Britain populated by drifters and desperados is fired by a comic energy that dances on the edge of self-combustion.' Guardian 'Barker's eccentrics are the stuff of pure farce. And they allow her to reinvent, joyously, the cogs, gears and mechanics of the genre. She knows, as Wodehouse also knew, how to rev up the language, do baroque variations on a phrase, even break into a kind of poetry.' New York Times
Nicola Barker lives and works in east London. She was the winner of the David Higham Prize for Fiction and joint winner of the Macmillan Silver Pen Award for 'Love Your Enemies', her first collection of stories. Her second story collection, 'Heading Inland', received the John Llewellyn Rhys/Mail on Sunday Prize. Her novel 'Wide Open' won the IMPAC Prize in 2000, and 'Clear' was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2004. She is one of Granta's 'Best Young British Novelists'of the decade.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780007193622 |
| ISBN 10 | 0007193629 |
| Title | Darkmans |
| Author | Nicola Barker |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | HarperCollins Publishers |
| Year published | 2007-05-01 |
| Number of pages | 848 |
| Prizes | Short-listed for Ondaatje Prize 2008, Short-listed for Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2007 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |