A shock
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
A shock
Picador, 2021
Available at 1 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
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  United States of America
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction and The Goldsmiths Prize
A Guardian, New York Times, Spectator, Hot Press and White Review Book of the Year
'A Shock inhabits the secret life of a city, its hidden energies. It dramatizes how patterns form and then disperse, how stories are made and relationships created . . . remarkable' - Colm Toibin, author of Brooklyn
In A Shock, a clutch of more or less loosely connected characters appear, disappear and reappear. They are all of them on the fringes of London life, often clinging on - to sanity or solvency or a story - by their fingertips.
Keith Ridgway, author of the acclaimed Hawthorn & Child, writes about people whose understanding of their own situation is only ever partial and fuzzy, who are consumed by emotions and anxieties and narratives, or the lack thereof, that they cannot master. He focuses on peripheral figures who mean well and to whom things happen, and happen confusingly, and his fictional strategies reflect this focus. In a deftly conjured high-wire act, Ridgway achieves the fine balance between the imperatives of drama and fidelity to his characters. The result is pin-sharp and often breathtaking.
'Political, pertinent, spunky and funny, A Shock is a grand sweep of modern storytelling' - June Caldwell, author of Room Little Darker
'A Shock is a perfect, living circle of beauty and mystery, clearsighted and compassionate, and, at times, wonderfully funny' - David Hayden, author of Darker With the Lights On
by "Nielsen BookData"