Book description
Two novels from Nicola Barker, published together in a single volume.
'Small Holdings': it's all go in a little oasis of nature, in this
stirring tale of subterfuge among the shrubbery - plus 'Reversed
Forecast', the prize-winning first novel from England's greatest female
comic novelist.
'Small Holdings' is set in an attractive park in north London. The
protagonists are Phil, a chronically shy gardener; Doug, his imposing
and unpredictable supervisor; and a malevolent one-legged ex-museum
curator called Saleem. Phil strives nobly to maintain his equilibrium
despite being systematically mystified, brutalised, drugged, derided and
seduced. But when he loses his eyebrows, he decides to fight back.
'Reversed Forecast' is a novel of gambling and allergies, music and
dogs, set in some of London's less scenic locations. Its characters
select each other and try or don't try to make winning combinations.
But, as Ruby, this story's soft-centred heroine, observes: 'Losing,
that's the whole point of the gamble.' 'A clever and quirky
tale…You'll find Nicola Barker's writing as easy to swallow as a glass
of milk.' Cosmopolitan
'Edgy and comic, it succeeds by virtue of Barker's flamboyant sense of
the absurd.' Elle
'A highly original piece of writing…A bizarre tale with a refreshingly
different approach.' Bookseller
'This marvellous short novel explodes into action, with Barker letting
off fireworks and flares in all directions, performing dazzling verbal
gymnastics as she charts the gardeners' progress through the maze of
corporate finance and sinister personal rivalry…Barker's ear for the
language of in-fighting contrasts beautifully with Phil's gentle
devotion to the natural world…As a study in the nature of charisma, this
is a hilarious and remarkably assured novel.' Alex Clark, TLS
'Funny and intelligent…Barker's novel is about territory; the site of
human rights, the fundamental reality which permits and governs the more
complex struggles of body and mind…prose so absolutely focussed that one
reads with the sense of a great truth being apprehended before one's
eyes…Barker's sense of plot and comic timing is faultless: she goes for
big effects, which resound brilliantly within the small space her
narrative describes, and holds the whole thing down together with
writing that is resolved down to the last detail. “Small Holdings”
paints the big picture on a small canvas, capturing in it the
universality that is the essence of good writing.' Rachel Cusk, The Times
'Barker is adept at manipulating complicated groups of characters,
knitting their lives together adroitly and watching them interconnect.'
Jonathan Coe, Daily Mail Nicola Barker lives and works in east London.
She was the winner of the David Higham Prize for Fiction and joint
winner of the Macmillan Silver Pen Award for 'Love Your Enemies', her
first collection of stories. Her second story collection, 'Heading
Inland', received the John Llewellyn Rhys/Mail on Sunday Prize. Her
novel 'Wide Open' won the IMPAC Prize in 2000, and 'Clear' was
longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2004. She is one of Granta's 'Best
Young British Novelists' of the decade.
