Synopses & Reviews
< p=""> As winner of the highly prestigious IMPAC International Dublin Literary Award, < i=""> Wide Open<> beat out books by such masters as Toni Morrison, Philip Roth, and Michael Cunningham. It is truly extraordinary work of fiction, taking readers into a small English seaside town, and into the minds and hearts of its remarkable inhabitants -- a man named Ronny, weed killer by trade, who has some strange things in common with a man he finds dangling from a bridge; Nathan, the son of a pedophile, who toils in the Underground's Lost Property department, endlessly logging missing items; Sara, purveyor of her family boar farm, and Lily, her teenage daughter, tragically born with unformed organs and blood that refuses to clot. Starkly original and at turns hilarious, sad, and hopeful, < i=""> Wide Open<> brilliantly displays Nicola Barker's delightfully singular literary talent.<>
Review
"This book has the rare power to cause you to exclaim out loud with bemusement, amazement, horror, humour and despair - and sometimes all at the same time"
Irish Independent
Review
"The brilliance of Barker's style is beyond question
Wide Open is unmistakably a important novel by an important novelist, stricken, troubling and grand"
The Spectator
Review
"Wide Open establishes Nicola Barker as one of the most interesting writers in Britain, at once funny and moving, irreverent and profound."
Independent on Sunday
Review
"Wide Open is so outrageously well-written that the whole damaged cast of oddballs becomes one's intimates for the duration
This is a stunningly original novel by the most unexpected talent around
Buy immediately."
Time Out
Synopsis
As winner of the highly prestigious IMPAC International Dublin Literary Award, Wide Open beat out books by such masters as Toni Morrison, Philip Roth, and Michael Cunningham. It is truly extraordinary work of fiction, taking readers into a small English seaside town, and into the minds and hearts of its remarkable inhabitants -- a man named Ronny, weed killer by trade, who has some strange things in common with a man he finds dangling from a bridge; Nathan, the son of a pedophile, who toils in the Underground's Lost Property department, endlessly logging missing items; Sara, purveyor of her family boar farm, and Lily, her teenage daughter, tragically born with unformed organs and blood that refuses to clot. Starkly original and at turns hilarious, sad, and hopeful, Wide Open brilliantly displays Nicola Barker's delightfully singular literary talent.
About the Author
Nicola Barker is one of Britain's most original and exciting literary talents. She is the author of two short-story collections: Love Your Enemies [winner of the David Higham Prize and the Macmillan Silver Pen Award] and Heading Inland [winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize]. Her previous novels are Reversed Forecast, Small Holdings, Wide Open Behindlings and Clear, the last of which was long-listed for the 2005 Booker Prize. Her work is translated into twenty languages, and in 2000, she won the IMPAC Award for Wide Open. In 2003, Nicola Barker was named a Granta Best of British Novelist. She lives in London.