Barn 8
Published on 9. April 2020
Book
Paperback/Softback
304 pages
978-1-911508-88-5 (ISBN)
Description
One disaffected administrator, one disenchanted teenager, four hundred and twenty-one vegan extremists, sixty trucks, and nine hundred thousand grumpy layer hens awaiting liberation. In barns. Six barns. No, wait, seven. No, wait ...
Two auditors for the US egg industry conceive a plot to liberate an entire egg farm's worth of animals, with catastrophic results. This wildly inventive but utterly plausible novel about a heist of a very unusual kind swirls with a rich array of voices: a farmer's daughter, hundreds of activists, a forest ranger who stumbles upon forty thousand hens, and a security guard abandoned for years on a farm. We glimpse the evolution of chickens twenty thousand years from now. We hear what hens think happens when they die.
And at the heart of this more-than-plucky novel lies the question: what constitutes meaningful action in a world so in need of change? With towering ingenuity, eviscerating wit, and unflappable passion, Barn 8 is a true rare breed, a comic-political drama, and a tour de force for our time.
'A novel like no other: An urgent moral fantasia, a post-human parable, a tender portrait of animal dignity and genius.' Dana Spiotta
'Deb Olin Unferth's hilarious genius is on dazzling display in this novel. Come for the brilliant insights about our faltering civilisation. Stay for the revolutionaries and the chickens.' Jenny Offill
Two auditors for the US egg industry conceive a plot to liberate an entire egg farm's worth of animals, with catastrophic results. This wildly inventive but utterly plausible novel about a heist of a very unusual kind swirls with a rich array of voices: a farmer's daughter, hundreds of activists, a forest ranger who stumbles upon forty thousand hens, and a security guard abandoned for years on a farm. We glimpse the evolution of chickens twenty thousand years from now. We hear what hens think happens when they die.
And at the heart of this more-than-plucky novel lies the question: what constitutes meaningful action in a world so in need of change? With towering ingenuity, eviscerating wit, and unflappable passion, Barn 8 is a true rare breed, a comic-political drama, and a tour de force for our time.
'A novel like no other: An urgent moral fantasia, a post-human parable, a tender portrait of animal dignity and genius.' Dana Spiotta
'Deb Olin Unferth's hilarious genius is on dazzling display in this novel. Come for the brilliant insights about our faltering civilisation. Stay for the revolutionaries and the chickens.' Jenny Offill
Reviews / Votes
Praise for Wait Till you See me DanceOne of The Brooklyn Rail's Best Books of 2017
One of Kirkus Reviews' Best Short Fiction of 2017
One of Electric Literature's 15 Best Short Story Collections of 2017
One of Largehearted Boy's Favorite Short Story Collections of 2017
'This assemblage of down-and-out moments is delivered with a wit and concision reminiscent of Lydia Davis and Diane Williams, a wry intelligence and keen irony that don't prevent Unferth's prose from offering deep emotional intimacy . . . Again and again in these pages, Unferth swerves from the mundane to the extraordinary, from biting to soaringly celebratory, often in a single sentence.' The New York Times Book Review
'One of the most important voices in fiction's long-awaited collection of short fiction is a fascinating must-read.' Newsweek
'[Unferth's] absurd and tender story collection is full of sentences like clear glass doors, and you, reader, are the bird . . . The way she writes [her characters] is reminiscent of the unsentimental, often absurd, compassion of George Saunders . . . The multiplicity of feeling is wonderful; it's like she's swirling all these different colours of paint together but stops while it's all still just thinly marbled together.' NPR
'No one can resist Unferth's masterful distortion of the American dream with a set of unforgettable mistake-makers who aren't quite past redemption.' Courtney Maum, CNN Travel 'I leap to read anything Deb Olin Unferth writes, and her latest book, Barn 8, is further proof of her singular talent, her gigantic heart. While Unferth's characters try to save hens, her miracle of a novel might, in turn, save you.' R.O. Kwon 'Like Flannery O'Connor, Deb Olin Unferth does things entirely her own way, and that way is impossible to describe. . . This very funny and absurd novel is also as serious as the world.' Zachary Lazar 'In this outrageous piece of rural noir and pitch-perfect characterization, Unferth recalls Edward Abbey's The Monkey Wrench Gang with a dose of vegan-minded quirk. This entertaining, satisfying genre turn shows off Unferth's range, and readers will be delighted by the characters' earnest crusade.' Publishers Weekly, starred review 'Ignited by her fiery wit and distinctive voice, Unferth's novel uses one of America's most valuable and overlooked institutions as fertile ground to raise questions around the truths people are fed and the ones they turn a blind eye to. . . Unferth's writing never feels patronizing-more than anything, it's galvanizing. . . If this novel isn't a movement, it has enough heart to start one.' Kirkus Reviews, starred review 'A daring writer of wit, imagination, and conscience, Unferth has transformed her foray into hen hell into an adroitly narrated, fast-paced, yet complexly dimensional novel about emotional and environmental devastation . . . Unferth sharply illuminates the contrariness of human nature, celebrates the evolutionary marvels of chickens, and exposes the horrors of the egg industry . . . [A] vividly provoking and revelatory work of ecofiction spiked with mordant humor and powered by love.' Booklist, starred review
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
High Wycombe
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 195 mm
Width: 130 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
335 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-911508-88-5 (9781911508885)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Deb Olin Unferth is the author of six books, most recently Barn 8, which is her UK debut. She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and Creative Capital, has won three Pushcart Prizes, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. An associate professor at the University of Texas in Austin, she also teaches creative writing at a prison in southern Texas.