Milkman
By Anna Burns
- Release Date: 2018-12-04
- Genre: Literary Fiction
Description
Winner of the Man Booker Prize
“Everything about this novel rings true. . . . Original, funny, disarmingly oblique and unique.”—The Guardian
In an unnamed city, middle sister stands out for the wrong reasons. She reads while walking, for one. And she has been taking French night classes downtown. So when a local paramilitary known as the milkman begins pursuing her, she suddenly becomes “interesting,” the last thing she ever wanted to be. Despite middle sister’s attempts to avoid him—and to keep her mother from finding out about her maybe-boyfriend—rumors spread and the threat of violence lingers. Milkman is a story of the way inaction can have enormous repercussions, in a time when the wrong flag, wrong religion, or even a sunset can be subversive. Told with ferocious energy and sly, wicked humor, Milkman establishes Anna Burns as one of the most consequential voices of our day.
Reviews
Once you get the hang of the dialect, it reads like Joyce-ian Shakespeare
5By Joe CriticCaptures in amazing texture and detail; a young woman struggling to navigate the generations-spanning dysfunctional turmoil of “the Troubles”. For me, the most compelling aspect was the spoken dialect - poetic in construction and deployments. The fact that joy and happiness could only be expressed through a double negative powerfully illustrates a constrained world where paramilitaries ensure that all of society at large watches and passes judgement, often fatally, on every action taken. Paranoia and second guessing go beyond just being useful coping skills and become the defining feature of a tangled and dark social fabric.Boring
1By TarbergI wanted to read Milkman because it received so many great reviews and won the Man Booker prize. The entire book is one long stream consciousness I forced myself to finish it but it was a real slog to get through. Really boring and repetitive.
