  | Book Details Title: Saltwater: A Novel |
Book DescriptionReview Winner of the Portico PrizeA New York Times Book Review Editor’s ChoiceNamed a Best Debut of Winter by Library JournalA Best Book of January at the Chicago Review of BooksA 2019 pick in the Guardian, Observer, Independent, Elle and Waterstones“Gorgeous . . . Andrews unspools Lucy’s coming-of-age story in short numbered fragments, prose poems that at first seem random and out of order, but build in a logical sequence all their own . . . Andrews’s writing is transportingly voluptuous, conjuring tastes and smells and sounds like her literary godmother, Edna O’Brien . . . It’s her mission, she has said, to tell the stories of working-class women.” –Penelope Green, The New York Times Book Review“[Saltwater] features something very rare in literary fiction: a working-class heroine, written by a young working-class author . . . The writing is disarmingly honest . . . This is a courageous book dealing frankly with youth, puberty, mother-daughter relationships, class, disability and alcoholism . . . I found parts of this novel intensely moving – I wish I had read it when I was 19.” –Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett, The Guardian“An audacious debut, an inventively told and intimate coming-of-age story.”–Largehearted Boy“Written with delicate, soul-bearing temperament, followers of Zinzi Clemmons’ What We Lose will fawn over Andrews’ warm-blooded coming-of-age debut concerning a young woman coming to grasp with the annals of her estranged upbringing.”–Paris Close, Paperback Paris“A meditation on mother-daughter relationships and finding a place to call home . . . The natural untethering that happens between mothers and daughters is remarkably rendered―the heartsickness given gravitas equal to romantic relationships . . . [Jessica Andrews] explores themes like memory, home, womanhood, and mother-daughter relationships with shattering clarity . . . A beautifully written experimental novel.” –Kirkus“Engrossing . . . This coming-of-age story will appeal to readers who appreciate strong mother-daughter relationships.”–Publishers Weekly“A lyrical book, where time is layered . . . Andrews is clear and eloquent when it comes to the subtle ways we become dislocated from our home and, indeed, how our concept of ‘home’ alters as we grow . . . [Saltwater] is luminous.”–Seán Hewitt, The Independent (Ireland)“Andrews writes beautiful, unusual descriptions, and short chapters give [Saltwater] a poetic sensibility . . . Andrews’ debut declares her one to watch.” –Kathy Sexton, Booklist“Raw, intimate and authentic . . . Andrews obviously has talent.”–Johanna Thomas-Corr, Sunday Times“A sensitive, gorgeously told story of a young woman’s coming-of-age.”―Library Journal “Jessica Andrews . . . captures that overwhelming sense of the possible and how daunting and disorientating it can be when the change you craved doesn’t expand your horizons but instead hollows you out.” –Sunday Express“Jessica Andrews’ debut novel shimmers with promise: it’s one of those books where, from the first pages, you’re grabbed by a distinctive new voice . . . It’s often raw, unsettling…Each vignette is so sharply cut, with such high shine. Saltwater shimmers with promise, and it will certainly be worth watching what Andrews does next.” –Holly Williams, Independent (UK)“Raw, intimate and authentic.” –Johanna Thomas-Corr, The Financial Times“Luminous.” –Observer New Review“A stunning new voice in British literary fiction.” –Independent (UK)“This book is sublime. It dares to be different, to look in a different way. Andrews is not filling anyone’s shoes, she is destroying the shoes and building them from scratch.” –Daisy Johnson, author of Everything Under“I lived in it. Evocative, sensuous, astute, original, blistering. Sentences to reread and reread.” –Lucy Jones“Saltwater moved me to tears on several occasions; here is proof of the poetic idiosyncrasies of every family, of every person’s narrative being worthy of literature, of the fact that a good novel shouldn’t bring voices in from the margins, but travel outwards towards them, and let them tell their own story, in their own voice, in their own, unique way.” –Andrew McMillan, winner of the Guardian First Novel Prize for Physical“Saltwater revels in the possibilities of its form, using fragments to shift tone and texture, reminding us of those pivotal moments that can upend a life. There is a growing corpus of excellent cross-genre experiments in prose fiction to which Salwater is a happy addition. This book holds disparate elements in a finely wrought balance that is difficult to achieve at any stage of a writing life let alone in a debut.”–Kayo Chingonyi, winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize“A book of breathtaking beauty. Saltwater is a visionary novel with prose that gets deep under your skin. The short, sharp chapters thrum with life. Lucy is a memorable character, her journey one that is moving and totally compelling, telling a series of deep truths about the state of our divided nation. Andrews is a major new voice in contemporary British fiction.” –Alex Preston, author of In Love and War“Reading Saltwater is an in-body experience. I felt like I had danced all night – awake, alive, good-sore-tired and something else – angry, really angry. Yes, this book showed me the parts of my past to keep but better than that it showed me the parts I must burn to be free.” –Carmen Marcus, author of When Saints Die Read more About the Author Jessica Andrews writes fiction and poetry. Her work has been published in The Guardian, The Independent, Elle, AnOther, Somesuch Stories, Shabby Doll House, and Papaya Press, among others. She teaches literature and creative writing, and is coeditor of The Grapevine, an online arts and literary magazine that aims to give a platform to underrepresented writers. Saltwater is her first novel. Read more Customers Review: ”It begins with our bodies. Skin on skin. My body burst from yours. Safe together in the violet dark and yet already there are spaces beginning to open between us.” <.b>”For now our secrets are only ours. You press me to your chest and I am you and I am not you and we will not always belong to each other but for now it is us and here it is quiet. I rise and fall with your breath in this bed. We are safe in the pink together.”This is a promising coming-of-age debut novel set partially in England, and partially in Donegal, Ireland. This is an author I know I will read again for her ability to pull me into her world, her story unflinchingly real, occasionally dark, heartrending, raw and honest, but oh-so lovely overall. Shared in what feels like a memoir-ish style, we follow her as she shares her memory of people and events that have shaped her life, the focus at the heart of this is on the bond between mothers and daughters. Friends, neighbors and family. Her mother, a mostly absent father, and a younger brother who was born profoundly deaf, which led to some life-changing moments for them all. A grandfather’s death that leaves her with a haunting memory. A grandmother that brings light and love to her life, she reminisces in her writing that ”Everything about her was silver; her voice as she sang along to the radio in the morning, the shiny fish scales caught on her tabard at the end of the day and the hole that she left in our lives when she died, edged like a fifty-pence piece.”There are no long chapters in this book, rather this is told in brief snippets, fragments of thoughts at times, other times longer thoughts, as these are years of change for her, of determining which path she wants to follow. It wanders back and forth through time, from childhood on, the memories of a childhood in one place haunting her, and those memories against the life she has built in this new home. Her heart eternally divided between these two places.Elements of this that reminded me of the writing of Sara Baume, an Irish author that I love. The introspective nature, the more often than not internal dialogue that presents an almost enveloping feeling of solitude, and the simple, gorgeous prose made for a very moving, beautifully shared story about the complex nature of mothers and daughters, gathering internal strength through our memories, allowing others to see us, as well.Many thanks for the ARC provided by Farrar, Straus and Giroux | |
6 reviews