Milkman by Anna Burns
In late 1970s Northern Ireland, our narrator walks with her nose buried in a book. She does this a lot; she prefers the 19th century to distract herself from the issues that guide her life. One day, the milkman shows up. He knows a lot about her; what she knows about him is that he is an influential paramilitary, and it would not be wise to anger him. He makes it clear that bad things will befall her boyfriend if she continues to see him. […]
Milkman by Anna Burns
CBR Bingo Square: Monster Damn, y’all. Yes, my summer of Irish fiction continues. Though I’ve had Anna Burns’s Milkman on my shelf for…maybe close to two years?…it’s a read I just kept putting off, and then I let my Instagram friends decide what novel I was gonna read next and this was the winner. Burns won the Booker Prize for this novel in 2018, and I can see why. (Sidebar: As much as I appreciate Margaret Atwood, the daring and deftness of what Burns accomplishes here […]
Milkman by Anna Burns
It took me about 50 pages to get into this one – it’s obviously really well-written, but it’s so dense and recursive that it took me a while to find my way into the story. Set in Northern Ireland during what’s probably the 1970s, Milkman is a dense stream of consciousness from our main character, who is never named. Almost every character is unnamed, instead being referred to by their relationship to others (our narrator calls herself middle sister; her mother calls her daughter; her […]
CBR10Bingo – Snubbed Maybe this is a cheat, but I didn’t feel like waiting until September for the shortlist or October for the final prize awarding. Both of these book were longlisted for the Booker Prize this year, and since I had already read a few from the list (Warlight by Michael Ondaatje, The Overstory by Richard Powers, Sabrina by Nick Drnaso, and The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner) none of which I think will win (though Richard Power’s novel is very good, but it’s […]
