Clear: A Transparent Novel

Clear: A Transparent Novel

Nicola Barker
$18.00
Publication Date: June 14th, 2005
Publisher:
Ecco
ISBN:
9780060797577
Pages:
352
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1 on hand, as of May 19 5:13pm
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Description

On September 5, 2003, illusionist David Blaine entered a small Perspex box adjacent to London's Thames River and began starving himself. Forty-four days later, on October 19, he left the box, fifty pounds lighter. That much, at least, is clear. And the rest? The crowds? The chaos? The hype? The rage? The fights? The lust? The filth? The bullshit? The hypocrisy?

Nicola Barker fearlessly crams all that and more into this ribald and outrageous peep show of a novel, her most irreverent, caustic, up-to-the-minute work yet, laying bare the heart of our contemporary world, a world of illusion, delusion, celebrity, and hunger.

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.

Praise for Clear: A Transparent Novel

“Barker’s weird imagination works wonders...Exceptional.” — Elle

“The brilliance of Barker’s style is beyond question.” — The Spectator

“The diversity of Barker’s imagination is stunning; her language, witty and exact.” — Daily Telegraph (London)

“An exasperating, beguiling, and occasionally damn-ner perfect piece of work [by an] infuratingly talented British author.” — Kirkus Reviews on Behindlings

“Nicola Barker has a rare writing talent.” — Time Out (London)

“Barker’s earthy, inventive, hilarious, and wickedly satirical novel is enormously entertaining.” — Booklist

“Her vision is unique, funny, dark, sarcastic and clever.” — Alain de Botton

“Barker’s narrative draws us in with the disturbing, surreal touch of a latter-day Lewis Carroll.” — Sunday Times (London)

“Dazzling...She celebrates the complexity of human experience.” — London Times

“The plot doesn’t just twist, it leaps and back-flips and does triple somersaults...” — New York Times Book Review