Synopses & Reviews
CHOSEN AS ONE OF THE BEST NOVELS OF 1998 BY THE LOS ANGELES TIMES AND WINNER OF ENGLAND'S MCKITTERICK PRICE This award-winning literary tour de force, shortlisted for both the Whitbread and the Booker prizes, tells the captivating tale of three men: Tam and Richie, good Scots lads at heart who have turned loafing into an art form, and their ever exasperated English foreman. Carefully laid plans go haywire from the start, and as they cover their tracks the best they can, the hapless trio heads south from Scotland to do a job in England, where they find that their reputation has preceded them, to say the least.
This outrageous and brilliant tale is riveting from beginning to end, introducing a magnetic new voice.
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Publishers Weekly Hilariously controlled...the clash between power-hungry bureaucrats and alcoholic, downtrodden laborers finds haunting, comic expression in this promising debut.
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Peter Catty Time Out London A heaving cauldron of black humor....You'll never look at a stretch of high-tensile agricultural fencing in quite the same way ever again.
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David Bowman San Francisco Chronicle [A] substantial pleasure....This simple, twisted novel should...shake things up and free other novelist/bus drivers from literature's holding pen, allowing them to mingle freely among Britain's literary gentry.
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Thomas Pynchon A demented, deadpan-comic wonder, this rude salute to the dark side of contract employment has the exuberant power of a magic word it might possibly be dangerous (like the title of a certain other Scottish tale) to speak aloud.
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Kirkus Reviews Enigmatic...taut...a strongly imagined and more than promising first effort.
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Anthony Bourdain The New York Times Book Review A witty, intricate fable.
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The New Yorker Resembles an electric fence: once you've grabbed hold, there's no letting go.
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Michael Dirda The Washington Post Book World A triumph of tone, at once funny, eerie, and suspenseful....In every respect, then, this is a tantalizing, absolutely hypnotic novel....Much as I admire [Booker Prize] winner Ian McEwan's beautifully composed Amsterdam, I'd have voted for The Restraint of Beasts. There's no resisting its insidious narrative charm.
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Laura Zigman USA Today The Restraint of Beasts is about fence-building in the same way that Moby-Dick is about fishing....The Restraint of Beasts could be best described as Local Hero meets Fargo meets The Full Monty meets Dumb and Dumber. Only darker. And weirder. And starker. And funnier....Hauntingly funny.
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Booklist Startlingly funny...readers will remember this book and laugh, long after they have finished reading it.
Synopsis
Tam and Rich work for a company specializing in fences built to keep beasts in and humans out. When one of their projects goes horribly wrong, they flee to London--only to discover that sometimes good fences make disastrous neighbors.
About the Author
Magnus Mills, author of All Quiet on the Orient Express, once earned his living building fences and driving buses in London, where he lives. He has now quit his day job.