A Shock
Keith Ridgway
2021 Nominee
The Goldsmiths Prize
2022 Nominee
James Tait Black Prize for Fiction
Synopsis
‘Remarkable' - Colm Tóibín, author of Brooklyn
Shortlisted for The Goldsmiths Prize and the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction
Book of the Year Selection in the Guardian, New York Times, Spectator, Hot Press and The White Review
In A Shock, a clutch of more or less loosely connected characters appear, disappear and reappear. They are all of them on the fringes of London life, often clinging on – to sanity, solvency or a story – by their fingertips. With this deftly conjured high-wire act, Ridgway achieves a fine balance between drama and fidelity to his characters. The result is pin-sharp and breathtaking.
'Like Finnegans Wake, only readable' - The Times
'Ridgway squeezes into the gaps of realism and makes something beautifully new'- Guardian
Keith Ridgway offers his London a luminous glow, but his competing narratives are also rooted in a real place, with a remarkable sense of character and the shifting systems that make up his contemporary urban space
Colm Tóibín
Like Finnegans Wake, only readable.The Times
Ingeniously slippery . . . an expertly constructed house of mirrorsLucy Scholes, New York Times Book Review
