Behindlings

Description

the breakthrough commercial novel from one of the greatest comic writers in the language Some people follow the stars. Some people follow the soaps. Some people follow rare birds, or obscure bands, or the form, or the football. Wesley - the hero of this book - prefers not to follow. He thinks that to follow anything too assiduously is a sign of intellectual weakness. Wesley is a prankster, a maverick, a charismatic manipulator, an accidental murderer. For these reasons he longs to live his life anonymously. But he can't. It is his awful destiny to be hotly pursued - secretly stalked, obsessively hunted - by a disparate group of oddballs he calls The Behindlings. Their motivations? Love, boredom, habit, greed, hatred, revenge. Can he stop them? Does he really want to? The only way to find out is to join them.

NICOLA BARKER is perhaps the most gifted young English female writer at work today. Wesley, perhaps the most gifted young English male character at work today, first made his debut in Nicola's story collection Heading Inland, in 1996. Her other published story collections are Love Your Enemies (1992), Small Holdings (1995) and Five Miles from Outer Hope (2000). Her previous novels are Reversed Forecast (1994) and Wide Open (1998). Her work is translated into more than a dozen languages. In 2000, she won the English-speaking world's largest prize for a single work of fiction, the IMPAC Award, for Wide Open.

'Marvellously inventive, a cornucopia of cornucopias all the way to its brilliant non-ending - its refusal to end. It is a new kind of book, and an intense kind of joy.' Ali Smith, TLS 'Compelling. Barker's narrative draws us in with the disturbing, surreal touch of a latter-day Lewis Carroll.' Michelene Wandor, Sunday Times 'Dazzling... She celebrates the complexity of human experience.' Frank Egerton, The Times 'Insanely inventive. Her vision of a marginal Britain populated by drifters and desperados is fired by a comic energy that dances on the edge of self-combustion.' Alex Clark, Guardian 'Fucked up, fucked off and totally, weirdly brilliant.' Eithne Farry, Elle 'Extraordinary. Full of deadpan wit, black comedy and visual slapstick., the novel delights most through its imaginative extravagances.' Katie Owen, Sunday Telegraph 'An intriguing satire on the nature of celebrity and the current confused state of our culture. Playful, dark, comic and cruel.' Kath Murphy, Scotland on Sunday 'Behindlings is an exquisite diversion and, more importantly, a true original.' Arena