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Ryan O'Connor - The Voids (2nd Hand Paperback)
SKU B003176
Availability:
1 available
Original price
£3.45
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Original price
£3.45
Original price
£3.45
£3.45
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£3.45
Current price
£3.45
Synopsis
A Book to Look Out For 2022 (BBC, i-d & Foyles).
An unsparing story of modern-day Britain, told with brilliant flashes of humour and humanity.
In a condemned tower block in Glasgow, the final occupant, a young man uplifted by angels and plagued by demons, searches for life in the voids: vacant flats that will never be lived in again.
Out in the world, he stumbles into the city, moving from one surreal situation to the next, encountering others on the margins of society, embracing friendship and camaraderie wherever it is offered, grappling with who he is and what shape his future might take.
Details
- Format : Standard 2nd Hand Paperback
- Condition : Very Good
- Category : Fiction - Scottish Fiction
- Published : 2022 (Scribe)
- ISBN : 9781913348441
- SKU : B003176
- PPC : LL300gm
- RRP : £8.99
- Quantity Available : 1 only.
External Reviews
‘Luminous . . . a writer capable of revealing the humanity in everyone. In an era when contemporary fiction is leaning ever more towards identity and relatability, it’s gratifying to know there’s still a place for a literary ride as wild as this.’ - Benjamin Myers, The Guardian.
‘Reading The Voids is a sensory experience. There is never a word too much, it never lingers. There is tragedy but no melodrama. O’Connor’s lightness of touch, the pace, economy, characters . . . are all perfect, all harmonious, poetic, but unadorned, even in the blackest of moments. Part of me is still in that high rise or watching the sunlight through the fire exit door at The Satellite. It is beautiful and perfect. I want to say this is a book God would like.’ - Paul Buchanan, The Blue Nile.
‘A novel about a young man in Glasgow whose life is spiralling downwards, told in almost hallucinogenic prose. I catch glimpses of Alexander Trocchi and William Burroughs in it, but it retains its own unique quality.’ - Ian Rankin, The Guardian.
‘A sensory portrait of the city, set in a dizzyingly surreal Glasgow.’ - Katie Goh, i-D Magazine.
‘A startling debut . . . Benders are integral to the Scottish literary tradition, but O’Connor sets the bar high in a series of absurd, visionary, uproarious episodes . . . A triumph of the grotesque. Comedy at its most existential.’ - John Burnside, TLS.
‘At times disturbing, and at others hilarious, there are characters that appear for a page that have haunted me ever since. A wild ride that journeys through the underbelly of our society.’ - Paul McVeigh, author of The Good Son.
‘There are echoes of J.G. Ballard in the setting, and of Don DeLillo in the prose. But The Voids is distinctively and brilliantly Ryan O’Connor’s own, rich with precise observations, full of haunting images, and replete with deft vignettes of character, place, and context. This is a novel that confidently generates its own unnerving atmospheres. Extraordinary work.’ - Kevin Power, author of Bad Day in Blackrock.
‘The Voids is a wild, magical, and magnetically mad picaresque . . . it had me bellowing with laughter on one page and needing to weep on the next. I tore through it, and it through me. A brilliant debut.’ - Niall Griffiths, author of Sheepshagger and Broken Ghost.
‘It is rare to discover a book that is simultaneously beautiful and devastating, where characters are frightening to behold but also worthy of compassion.’ - Simon Van Booy, author of Night Came with Many Stars.
The Author
Ryan O'Connor received the Scottish Book Trust Next Chapter Award in 2018 and later the same year was Highly Commended in the Bridport Prize short story category. His debut novel, The Voids, will be published by Scribe in 2022. He currently lives in Glasgow with his partner and young son.