Census by Jesse Ball
'CENSUS is a vital testament to selfless love; a psalm to commonplace miracles; and a mysterious evolving metaphor. So kind, it aches.' David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas A father and son who are census takers journey across a nameless country from the town of A to the town of Z in the wake of the father's fatal diagnosis. Knowing that his time is menacingly short, the father takes his son, who requires close and constant adult guidance, on this trip of indefinite length. Their feelings for each other are challenged and bolstered as they move in and out of a variety of homes, meeting a variety of different people. Census is about the ways in which people react to the son's condition, to the son as a person in the world. It is about discrimination and acceptance, kindness and art, education and love. It is a profoundly moving novel, glowing with wisdom and grace, roaring with a desire to change the world.
'Census is a vital testament to selfless love; a psalm to commonplace miracles; and a mysterious evolving metaphorSo kind, it aches' -- David Mitchell
Census is a strange and marvellous piece of work. It has the eerie atmosphere of both an antique fable and a letter from the future; it is sad and lonely and joyous and shimmering with love. I feel changed for having read it. Jesse Ball is a stunning writer with a searching gaze and a steady hand; he makes me want to stand up and be counted -- Jon McGregor
Unexpected, often remarkable... Done with a light touch and a resourceful sense of drama [the characters are] all vividly rendered often with wonderfully macabre or bizarre stories in their background, and advance a sustained philosophical inquiry into the nature and limits of human empathy... A detailed and moving portrait of a kind of radical innocence, one that brings both the cruelty and the kindness in the world around it into sharp focus. [A] powerful... unusual, impressive novel -- James Lasdun * Guardian *
Uniquely memorable and utterly profound.. strange and dreamlike... -- Melissa Harrison * Financial Times *
A novel of abundant affecting moments and strange, fierce wisdom, Census is an exquisitely powerful testament to love -- Lisa McInerney
This pared-to-the-bone tale of a widower and his son on a northward journey to chart the population of an unspecified America-like country [is] a powerful reflection on what constitutes selfhood [from] Ball - a rising star of US fiction... I defy anyone not to read its final pages through tears -- Anthony Cummins * Daily Mail *
Census is a curious, clever novel... Ball's style is spare and simple... Census is a help to greater understanding and an act of piety. It is a humane, surreal novel -- Brian Martin * Spectator *
Census is a journey without names... Places are identified only by letter, so from A-Z, they move through the very DNA of language... This is both a curiously complicated and persuasively simple book... The text reads more like a letter exploring the complexity of love... Jesse Ball is telling us a most important truth through the father: those who battle to communicate will always need a champion -- Henrietta McKervey * Irish Times *
Reading Jesse Ball's new novel feels like being hypnotised, or like having your heart broken... a dreamlike road-trip of a book ... overflowing with feeling -- Patrick Langley * White Review *
A wonderful, stirring, essential novel -- Kit Caless * New Statesman *
Ball's writing is a blend of delicacy and panache... Census shimmers between a spectrum of moods; its prose has a versatility that can equally do heartfelt [...] and slyly ironic... remarkable -- Cal Revely-Calder * Daily Telegraph *
I was hugely moved by Jesse Ball's allegorical Census, about love and down's Syndrome -- Selected by Daniel Swift as a book of the year * Spectator *
The book that blew my head wide open this year was Jessse Ball's Census, which was intimate and dislocated and funny and sad and like nothing else I've read before. Not enough people have read it. Go and read it -- Selected by Jon McGregor as a book of the year * New Statesman *
I'm also drawn to novels of the surreal-yet-just-about-believable species... Census by Jesse Ball is a much more sensitive, successful example - somehow both a road movie and a celebration of the life of his big brother -- Book of the Year selected by Sara Baume * Irish Times *
Census is a strange and marvellous piece of work. It has the eerie atmosphere of both an antique fable and a letter from the future; it is sad and lonely and joyous and shimmering with love. I feel changed for having read it. Jesse Ball is a stunning writer with a searching gaze and a steady hand; he makes me want to stand up and be counted -- Jon McGregor
Unexpected, often remarkable... Done with a light touch and a resourceful sense of drama [the characters are] all vividly rendered often with wonderfully macabre or bizarre stories in their background, and advance a sustained philosophical inquiry into the nature and limits of human empathy... A detailed and moving portrait of a kind of radical innocence, one that brings both the cruelty and the kindness in the world around it into sharp focus. [A] powerful... unusual, impressive novel -- James Lasdun * Guardian *
Uniquely memorable and utterly profound.. strange and dreamlike... -- Melissa Harrison * Financial Times *
A novel of abundant affecting moments and strange, fierce wisdom, Census is an exquisitely powerful testament to love -- Lisa McInerney
This pared-to-the-bone tale of a widower and his son on a northward journey to chart the population of an unspecified America-like country [is] a powerful reflection on what constitutes selfhood [from] Ball - a rising star of US fiction... I defy anyone not to read its final pages through tears -- Anthony Cummins * Daily Mail *
Census is a curious, clever novel... Ball's style is spare and simple... Census is a help to greater understanding and an act of piety. It is a humane, surreal novel -- Brian Martin * Spectator *
Census is a journey without names... Places are identified only by letter, so from A-Z, they move through the very DNA of language... This is both a curiously complicated and persuasively simple book... The text reads more like a letter exploring the complexity of love... Jesse Ball is telling us a most important truth through the father: those who battle to communicate will always need a champion -- Henrietta McKervey * Irish Times *
Reading Jesse Ball's new novel feels like being hypnotised, or like having your heart broken... a dreamlike road-trip of a book ... overflowing with feeling -- Patrick Langley * White Review *
A wonderful, stirring, essential novel -- Kit Caless * New Statesman *
Ball's writing is a blend of delicacy and panache... Census shimmers between a spectrum of moods; its prose has a versatility that can equally do heartfelt [...] and slyly ironic... remarkable -- Cal Revely-Calder * Daily Telegraph *
I was hugely moved by Jesse Ball's allegorical Census, about love and down's Syndrome -- Selected by Daniel Swift as a book of the year * Spectator *
The book that blew my head wide open this year was Jessse Ball's Census, which was intimate and dislocated and funny and sad and like nothing else I've read before. Not enough people have read it. Go and read it -- Selected by Jon McGregor as a book of the year * New Statesman *
I'm also drawn to novels of the surreal-yet-just-about-believable species... Census by Jesse Ball is a much more sensitive, successful example - somehow both a road movie and a celebration of the life of his big brother -- Book of the Year selected by Sara Baume * Irish Times *
Jesse Ball is the award-winning author of over ten books of prose, poetry, drawings and essays. He lives in Chicago.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781783783755 |
| ISBN 10 | 1783783753 |
| Title | Census |
| Author | Jesse Ball |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Granta Books |
| Year published | 2018-04-05 |
| Number of pages | 256 |
| Prizes | Winner of The Gordon Burn Prize 2018 (UK) |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |