Corey Fah Does Social Mobility
Published on 13. July 2023
Book
Hardback
160 pages
978-0-241-63253-6 (ISBN)
Description
SHORTLISTED FOR THE ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARD 2024
LONGLISTED FOR THE NOTA BENE PRIZE 2024
The radical, joyful follow-up to the Goldsmiths Prize-winning Sterling Karat Gold.
This is the story of Corey Fah, a writer on the cusp of a windfall, courtesy of the Social Evils prize committee, for whom the actual gong - and with it the prize money - remains tantalizingly out of reach.
Neon beige, with UFO-like qualities, the elusive trophy leads Corey, with partner Drew and surprise eight-legged companion Bambi Pavok, on a spectacular detour through their childhood in the Forest - via an unlikely stint on reality TV. Navigating those twin horrors, through wormholes and time loops, Corey learns - the hard way - the difference between a prize and a gift.
Both radiant and revolutionary, Isabel Waidner's fiction gleefully takes a hammer to false binaries, boundaries and borders, turning walls into bridges and words into wings. Fierce, fluid and funny, they free us to imagine another way of being.
This is a novel about coming into one's own, the labour of love, the tendency of history to repeat itself and the pitfalls of social mobility. It's about watching TV with your lover.
'A head-spinning, mind-bending roller coaster of fun, horror, and subversion. I love it' Kamila Shamsie
'Reading Waidner is like plugging into an electric socket of language and ideas' Guardian
LONGLISTED FOR THE NOTA BENE PRIZE 2024
The radical, joyful follow-up to the Goldsmiths Prize-winning Sterling Karat Gold.
This is the story of Corey Fah, a writer on the cusp of a windfall, courtesy of the Social Evils prize committee, for whom the actual gong - and with it the prize money - remains tantalizingly out of reach.
Neon beige, with UFO-like qualities, the elusive trophy leads Corey, with partner Drew and surprise eight-legged companion Bambi Pavok, on a spectacular detour through their childhood in the Forest - via an unlikely stint on reality TV. Navigating those twin horrors, through wormholes and time loops, Corey learns - the hard way - the difference between a prize and a gift.
Both radiant and revolutionary, Isabel Waidner's fiction gleefully takes a hammer to false binaries, boundaries and borders, turning walls into bridges and words into wings. Fierce, fluid and funny, they free us to imagine another way of being.
This is a novel about coming into one's own, the labour of love, the tendency of history to repeat itself and the pitfalls of social mobility. It's about watching TV with your lover.
'A head-spinning, mind-bending roller coaster of fun, horror, and subversion. I love it' Kamila Shamsie
'Reading Waidner is like plugging into an electric socket of language and ideas' Guardian
Reviews / Votes
[The] writer everyone is talking about . . . and deservedly so . . . Their explosive sensibility and style are as far removed from mediocre prose and middle-class manners as you can imagine -- Bernardine Evaristo Buckle up! Corey Fah Does Social Mobility is a head-spinning, mind-bending roller coaster of fun, horror, and subversion. I love it -- Kamila Shamsie The fantastical and the familiar merge in this energetic inquiry into class politics and cultural capital . . . Since their debut novel, Gaudy Bauble, in 2017, Waidner's writing has been admired for its remarkable innovation, unflinching political vision, vivid language and, frankly, hilarious charm . . . It is tempting to predict that this book, which gives a whole new dimension to the idea of the zeitgeist . . . will see Waidner step on to the podium once more -- Lara Pawson * Guardian * With each book, they get better and better. Corey Fah Does Social Mobility is that rare thing: An authentically radical novel that is joyful and hilarious -- Merve Emre A radical, rebellious novel . . . [Waidner] brings a fresh lens to our troubled world . . . A biting, state of the nation work that raises the profile of civilisation's appointed underdogs and challenges the status quo of binary consciousness . . . bold, feisty work -- Em Strang * Observer * [It is] rare to find a novel with real stylistic and political ambition -- Zadie Smith * Guardian * [A] sprightly novel . . . [Waidner] mischievously challenges received notions of social mobility -- Ellen Peirson-Hagger * The New Statesman * Filled with wickedly sharp commentary and well-aimed digs at hypocrisy and injustice . . . Waidner's idiosyncratic prose [paints] terrifying, transcendent and topsy-turvy images . . . Corey Fah Does Social Mobility is, perhaps surprisingly, both sentimental and optimistic in its depiction of love (for ourselves and those around us) as a radical act -- Alice Wadsworth * The Times Literary Supplement * It's beginning to look like there's nothing the immensely talented Waidner can't do * Kirkus (starred review) * Waidner's original prose spins fantastical imagery with social commentary * Frieze *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Penguin Books Ltd
Dimensions
Height: 201 mm
Width: 134 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
240 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-241-63253-6 (9780241632536)
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
Person
Isabel Waidner is a writer based in London. They are the author of Corey Fah Does Social Mobility, Sterling Karat Gold, We Are Made of Diamond Stuff and Gaudy Bauble. They are the winner of the Goldsmiths Prize 2021 and were shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize in 2019, the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction in 2022 and the Republic of Consciousness Prize in 2018, 2020 and 2022. They are a co-founder of the event series Queers Read This at the Institute of Contemporary Arts and they are an academic in the School of English and Drama at Queen Mary University of London.