Luckenbooth
$32.42
- Paperback
352 pages
- Release Date
17 August 2021
Summary
The hugely-anticipated third novel - ambitious, ferocious and gripping - from the prize-winning author of The Panopticon.
A Granta Best Young British Novelist and winner of the Gordon Burn Prize. Shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction.
“One of the most stunning literary experiences I’ve had in years” - Irvine Welsh “A weird and wonderful gothic confection” - Guardian “An audacious statement and a terrific read” - Times Literary Supplement “Dazzlingly a…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780099592198 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 0099592193 |
| Author: | Dr Jenni Fagan |
| Publisher: | Cornerstone |
| Imprint: | Windmill Books |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 352 |
| Release Date: | 17 August 2021 |
| Weight: | 280g |
| Dimensions: | 197mm x 130mm x 23mm |
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What They're Saying
Critics Review
One of the most stunning literary experiences I’ve had in years. LUCKENBOOTH, sprawling the decades with its themes of repression and revenge, brings back something that has long been lacking in the British novel: ambition. If Alasdair Gray’s Lanark was a masterly imagining of Glasgow, then this is the quintessential novel of Edinburgh at its darkest. – Irvine Welsh
It’s extraordinary. Make sure it’s on your radar … Definitely going to be one of my books of 2021, a gloriously transgressive novel of Edinburgh denizens past and present. – Ian Rankin
Over time, 10 Luckenbooth Close sinks from grand residence to condemned squat with secrets seething in its walls … Luckenbooth is a place of compacted time, where the past manifests as unquiet ghosts and the future bleeds into the present … There’s a force in Luckenbooth’s bizarre assemblage. * The Times *
With Luckenbooth, [Jenni Fagan] gives us nine of Edinburgh’s wildest and loneliest misfits … Piles on claustrophobia and menace … As we move between the characters’ perspectives, gritty realism takes over from the gothic. This isn’t fancy Edinburgh: at No 10 it’s cigarettes, cocaine and Benzedrine for breakfast … There are memorable creations … Fagan’s prose is poetic, high-octane, built on punchy sentences. Arresting descriptions of the city and its weather abound. This is not a novel that lacks energy. * Sunday Times *
Jenni Fagan’s Luckenbooth reminded me of one of my favourite novels, Georges Perec’s Life: A User’s Manual. Set in an Edinburgh tenement, it leaps across decades to tell the story of the curse that haunts No 10 Luckenbooth Close and its eccentric inhabitants. – Alex Preston * Observer *
An audacious statement and a terrific read.
– Michael Kerrigan * Times Literary Supplement *A deeply powerful, compellingly vivid novel … LUCKENBOOTH is a major work of Scottish fiction - possibly one of the most significant novels of the last ten years … [A] forceful work of fiction to energize a somewhat diffuse, uncertain and often self-congratulatory fictional landscape … What is so significant about the novel is its instinctive, vatic, lyrical, occult power … A poetic novel which reverberates and pulses in its own universe and on its own terms. – Alan Warner
A whirlwind of a novel, and I am certain that various labels will be attached to it - Caledonian magic realism, tartan gothic, something nasty in the shortbread tin, Angela Carter in a kilt cross-hatched with safety pins. What it is, is radical and profoundly fabulist. It is about the stories we are told and whether there is the possibility of there being new stories … There is a great deal of imagination and empathy at work here. The structure of the building acts as a kind of framework to contain the pent-up furies … Luckenbooth is a daring book, and beautifully written. * Scotland on Sunday *
Luckenbooth by Jenni Fagan is the queer witchy revenge horror I had no idea I needed. Every word perfectly chosen. Absolutely outstanding writing, stretching through nine decades, with a soul as back as the centuries of soot on an Old Town brick. – Kirstin Innes, author of Scabby Queen
From its arresting beginning, in which the Devil’s pregnant daughter rows into the Scottish capital to conclude a deal, to its dark, cathartic ending, Fagan’s third novel exerts a powerful grip. * iNews *
About The Author
Dr Jenni Fagan
Jenni Fagan was born in Scotland. She won the Gordon Burn Prize for her memoir, Ootlin, which was also longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction. Her debut novel, The Panopticon, saw her selected as a Granta Best Young British Novelist, and her second novel, The Sunlight Pilgrims, gained her Scottish Author of the Year. Jenni has been listed for the Encore Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prizes, the Desmond Elliott Prize, the Sunday Times Short Story Award, and the Pushcart Prize. She is a Doctor of Philosophy, a member of Liberty, and a Royal Society of Literature Fellow. She lives in Edinburgh with her son.
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