Risky in conception, hip and yet soulful, this is a prose poem of a novel—intense, lyrical, and highly evocative—with a mystery at its center, which keeps the reader in suspense until the final page. In a tour de force that could be described as Altmanesque, we are invited into the private lives of the residents of a quiet urban street in England over the course of a single day. In delicate, intricately observed closeup, we witness the hopes, fears, and unspoken despairs of a diverse community: the man with painfully scarred hands who tried in vain to save his wife from a burning house and who must now care for his young daughter alone; a group of young clubgoers just home from an all-night rave, sweetly high and mulling over vague dreams; the nervous young man at number 18 who collects weird urban junk and is haunted by the specter of unrequited love. The tranquillity of the street is shattered at day's end when a terrible accident occurs. This tragedy and an utterly surprising twist provide the momentum for the book. But it is the author's exquisite rendering of the ordinary, the everyday, that gives this novel its freshness, its sense of beauty, wonder, and hope. Rarely does a writer appear with so much music and poetry—so much vision—that he can make the world seem new.
- Available now
- Sweeten Up Your Holidays!
- New eBook additions
- Graphic Novels, Manga, and Superheroes!
- New kids additions
- New teen additions
- Most popular
- Try something different
- Resources for Libraries
- New Russian Language Books
- New Spanish Language Books
- "Se me enchina la piel" - Libros espantosos para adultos
- See all
- New audiobook additions
- Full-cast audio
- Great Audiobook Narrators!
- New teen additions
- New kids additions
- Available now
- Most popular
- Try something different
- See all
- Diverse Families
- Family Road Trip
- Reese Witherspoon's Book Club Reads
- The 100 Best Teen Books of All Time!
- Spies, Lies & Political Intrigue
- Great Adult Books for Teens!
- Transgender/nonbinary reads
- What's Next? Getting to a New Normal
- Twisty Psychological Thrillers
- Need a Laugh?
- Learn English
- African-American Romance
- Burnout: Signs, Symptoms and Strategies
- See all