Broken Things by Padrika Tarrant
“In fact, the higher I climbed, the more I felt the crawling horror of knowledge. At the foot of the stairs, all of truth lay torn open, flayed; with me above it, omniscient and shaking, not looking down.” Broken Things encompasses a world of fractured realities and magic. Here are voices lost inside themselves, where the world is not as it should be and nothing may be trusted. These are the lives that are eked out at the very edges of the city, where God might be found in a bonfire or a bag lady can burst into a flock of pigeons and wild laughter. This book picks at the familiar parts of the everyday and frays them, very slightly, reminding us of the beauty and fear of dreams, of things just glimpsed through the corner of the eye. A woman becomes a gas explosion, or witness to the death of a nameless man in a library. A kitchen knife crawls after a little girl to keep her safe and an old lady hears her mother calling from a cupboard. Broken Things is a book for those who have not outgrown fairytales; for those who like to feel just a little disturbed; for those who remember the ancient creeping of childhood darkness and the exquisite glory of snow.
Padrika Tarrant was born in 1974. She read sculpture at Norwich School of Art, where she developed an unhealthy fixation with scissors and the animator Jan Svankmajer. Fates of the Animals is her third book, following Broken Things (Salt 2007) and The Knife Drawer (Salt 2011). She lives in Norwich with her beautiful daughter and some lovely stuffed animals. She does not entirely trust her cutlery.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781844714094 |
| ISBN 10 | 1844714098 |
| Title | Broken Things |
| Author | Padrika Tarrant |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Salt Publishing |
| Year published | 2009-01-15 |
| Number of pages | 144 |
| Prizes | Long-listed for Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award 2008 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |