Temper

'There's a gap where my sense of place should be. It's quite a useful one sometimes. It allows me to sit on the cusp of an opinion.' 

Following a move to the Netherlands, a young woman dissects the developments of her new life: awkward exchanges with the people she meets, days spent alone freelancing in her apartment, her confrontation with boredom and unease. In her newfound isolation, she develops an unusual friendship with Colette, a woman she neither likes nor can keep away from. As her feelings of dislocation grow, larger anxieties about her purpose - or lack of it - begin to encroach. And underneath it all, a burgeoning frustration bubbles. 

Intimate, incisive and brilliantly observed, Temper explores loneliness, self-worth and disconnection with head-nodding accuracy.

'Temper explores loneliness, alienation and transience in lucid, gorgeous prose. Walker's observations on the nature of work and the hollowness of modern life are stark and brilliant; a must-read for anyone who has ever felt like an outsider' -Jessica Andrews, author of Saltwater and Milk Teeth

'An intimate portrait of a young woman dislocated and adrift, Temper is at once subtle and full of force, deeply relatable and coolly unfamiliar' -Chloe Ashby, author of Wet Paint

'Phoebe Walker's prose is subtle, incisive, and rich in dark surprises. In Temper, she provides an unsettling and highly intimate account of loneliness, disconnection and malignant relationships. This is a quietly devastating debut' -Naomi Booth, author of Exit Management and Animals at Night

Phoebe Walker is originally from Northumberland. She has lived in both London and the Netherlands and is now based in Manchester, where she works as a development consultant. Her debut poetry pamphlet, Animal Noises, received an Eric Gregory Award in 2021. Phoebe also won the Mairtin Crawford Poetry Award in 2019 and a Northern Writers' Award for poetry in 2012. Phoebe's poetry has been published in Ambit, Under the Radar, The Tangerine, The Moth, Magma and was included in the Northern Poetry Library's Poem of the North exhibition. Temper is her debut novel.

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