
Luckenbooth
Jenni Fagan(Author)
Windmill Books (Publisher)
Published on 12. August 2021
Book
Paperback/Softback
352 pages
978-0-09-959219-8 (ISBN)
Description
ONE OF GRANTA MAGAZINE'S BEST OF YOUNG BRITISH NOVELISTS
SHORTLISTED FOR THE JAMES TAIT BLACK PRIZE FOR FICTION, THE DESMOND ELLIOTT PRIZE FOR THE PANOPTICON and THE GORDON BURN PRIZE 2021
'One of the most stunning literary experiences I've had in years' Irvine Welsh
'Dazzlingly ambitious' Douglas Stuart, author of Shuggie Bain
'A gloriously transgressive novel' Ian Rankin
1910, Edinburgh. Jessie, the devil's daughter, arrives on the doorstep of an imposing tenement building and knocks on a freshly painted wooden door. She has been sent by her father to bear a child for a wealthy couple, but, when things go wrong, she places a curse on the building and all who live there - and it lasts a century.
Caught in the crossfire are the residents of 10 Luckenbooth Close, and they all have their own stories to tell. While the world outside is changing, inside, the curse creeps up all nine floors and through each door. Soon, the building's longest kept secret - the truth of what happened to Jessie - will finally be heard.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE JAMES TAIT BLACK PRIZE FOR FICTION, THE DESMOND ELLIOTT PRIZE FOR THE PANOPTICON and THE GORDON BURN PRIZE 2021
'One of the most stunning literary experiences I've had in years' Irvine Welsh
'Dazzlingly ambitious' Douglas Stuart, author of Shuggie Bain
'A gloriously transgressive novel' Ian Rankin
1910, Edinburgh. Jessie, the devil's daughter, arrives on the doorstep of an imposing tenement building and knocks on a freshly painted wooden door. She has been sent by her father to bear a child for a wealthy couple, but, when things go wrong, she places a curse on the building and all who live there - and it lasts a century.
Caught in the crossfire are the residents of 10 Luckenbooth Close, and they all have their own stories to tell. While the world outside is changing, inside, the curse creeps up all nine floors and through each door. Soon, the building's longest kept secret - the truth of what happened to Jessie - will finally be heard.
Reviews / Votes
One of the most stunning literary experiences I've had in years. LUCKENBOOTH, sprawling the decades with its themes of repression and revenge, brings back something that has long been lacking in the British novel: ambition. If Alasdair Gray's Lanark was a masterly imagining of Glasgow, then this is the quintessential novel of Edinburgh at its darkest. -- Irvine Welsh It's extraordinary. Make sure it's on your radar ... Definitely going to be one of my books of 2021, a gloriously transgressive novel of Edinburgh denizens past and present. -- Ian Rankin Over time, 10 Luckenbooth Close sinks from grand residence to condemned squat with secrets seething in its walls ... Luckenbooth is a place of compacted time, where the past manifests as unquiet ghosts and the future bleeds into the present ... There's a force in Luckenbooth's bizarre assemblage. * The Times * With Luckenbooth, [Jenni Fagan] gives us nine of Edinburgh's wildest and loneliest misfits ... Piles on claustrophobia and menace ... As we move between the characters' perspectives, gritty realism takes over from the gothic. This isn't fancy Edinburgh: at No 10 it's cigarettes, cocaine and Benzedrine for breakfast ... There are memorable creations ... Fagan's prose is poetic, high-octane, built on punchy sentences. Arresting descriptions of the city and its weather abound. This is not a novel that lacks energy. * Sunday Times * Jenni Fagan's Luckenbooth reminded me of one of my favourite novels, Georges Perec's Life: A User's Manual. Set in an Edinburgh tenement, it leaps across decades to tell the story of the curse that haunts No 10 Luckenbooth Close and its eccentric inhabitants. -- Alex Preston * Observer * An audacious statement and a terrific read. -- Michael Kerrigan * Times Literary Supplement * A deeply powerful, compellingly vivid novel ... LUCKENBOOTH is a major work of Scottish fiction - possibly one of the most significant novels of the last ten years ... [A] forceful work of fiction to energize a somewhat diffuse, uncertain and often self-congratulatory fictional landscape ... What is so significant about the novel is its instinctive, vatic, lyrical, occult power ... A poetic novel which reverberates and pulses in its own universe and on its own terms. -- Alan Warner A whirlwind of a novel, and I am certain that various labels will be attached to it - Caledonian magic realism, tartan gothic, something nasty in the shortbread tin, Angela Carter in a kilt cross-hatched with safety pins. What it is, is radical and profoundly fabulist. It is about the stories we are told and whether there is the possibility of there being new stories ... There is a great deal of imagination and empathy at work here. The structure of the building acts as a kind of framework to contain the pent-up furies ... Luckenbooth is a daring book, and beautifully written. * Scotland on Sunday * Luckenbooth by Jenni Fagan is the queer witchy revenge horror I had no idea I needed. Every word perfectly chosen. Absolutely outstanding writing, stretching through nine decades, with a soul as back as the centuries of soot on an Old Town brick. -- Kirstin Innes, author of Scabby Queen From its arresting beginning, in which the Devil's pregnant daughter rows into the Scottish capital to conclude a deal, to its dark, cathartic ending, Fagan's third novel exerts a powerful grip. * iNews *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Cornerstone
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 195 mm
Width: 130 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
285 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-09-959219-8 (9780099592198)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
01/2021
Cornerstone Digital
€8.99
Available for download
Person
Jenni Fagan was born in Scotland. She won the Gordon Burn Prize for her memoir, Ootlin, which was also longlisted for the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction. Her debut novel, The Panopticon, saw her selected as a Granta Best Young British Novelist, and her second novel, The Sunlight Pilgrims, gained her Scottish Author of the Year. Jenni has been listed for the Encore Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prizes, the Desmond Elliott Prize, the Sunday Times Short Story Award, and the Pushcart Prize. She is a Doctor of Philosophy, a member of Liberty, and a Royal Society of Literature Fellow. She lives in Edinburgh with her son.