Prairie Oyster

Prairie Oyster had me laughing, wincing, cheering, recognizing, admiring - and turning pages, rapidly. Sophie Robinson has gifted us a new classic of the (queer) lovelorn, strung out, and lurching toward art and new life – Maggie Nelson
Sophie out jars The Bell Jar with this dark and gleaming masterpiece. I cried twice at her tale of how love, nature, and art rumble aloud right up to the edge in a story that’s both scary and godly. In life or on the page she did this – Eileen Myles
Sophie Robinson’s debut is a masterful contribution to the canon of queer women’s literature. She has such power over language and tension that I had to surrender to the rush and the nausea of Pearl’s misguided obsession. A smart and uncomfortable dissection of longing taken to its ultimate conclusion – Shon Faye
I loved this meditative, lyrical fever dream of a novel. A tense and poetic exploration of obsession and art, it is beautiful and painful, like pressing a bruise. Melancholic, hopeful, seedy, dazzling, tender, brutal. Just gorgeous – Emma van Straaten
Sophie Robinson has long been one of my favourite poets, so when I heard she was writing a book I knew it was going to be something special. Her work is unflinching, unexpected, radical, lyrical, and wholly original. Sometimes bleak, always beautiful, she writes like nobody else – Sophie Mackintosh
Sophie Robinson’s lush and detailed dive into the flayed-open femme heart is irresistible - wild, cringey, addictive, relatable. The ride to hell and back is real, and so perversely enjoyable you emerge sweaty, wanting to go back for more. Her excavation of the heart’s chaos is so immersive and femme, so dirty and poppy and unafraid, emotional and frank and funny – Michelle Tea
Best novelistic treatment of addiction I’ve read in years – Keiran Goddard
Prairie Oyster is unparalleled in exploring the drowning, visceral ache of obsession and the reality of a complete unravelling all the way to the edge. Robinson’s prose is as addictive as Pearl’s wanting, this is a fearless look into the dark – Lauren McQuistin
Beautiful … an original story about addiction and obsession, told with raw honesty, sensoriality, and visceral attention to detail - carving out a place for itself in the queer women’s literary canon. This novel contains such richness and complexity of addiction that it is difficult to place in a box, or judge morally, much like where its protagonist sits in her world, whom we inexplicably root for * Nonchalant Magazine *
Exhilirating … Robinson’s feverish prose makes this tangled mess of lust, substance addiction and creative fixation feel disturbingly real - you can’t look away * Dazed *

Sophie Robinson’s debut poetry collection Rabbit (Boiler House Press, 2018) was the Poetry Book Society Wild Card Choice, and poems from it were highly commended by the Forward Prize. Her work has been published in Granta, the Guardian, BOMB Magazine, The Believer, N+1, The Poetry Review and The White Review. Prairie Oyster is her first novel.

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