The Panopticon - Hardcover

Fagan, Jenni

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385347863 ISBN 13: 9780385347860

Publisher: Hogarth Pr, 2013

Synopsis

An Amazon Best of the Year pick and named one of NPR, Library Journal,and Flavorwire's Best of 2013 novels, THE PANOPTICON is a dazzling debut by one ofGranta’s Best Young British Novelists

Anais Hendricks, fifteen, is in the back of a police car. She is headed for the Panopticon, a home for chronic young offenders. She can't remember what’s happened, but across town a policewoman lies in a coma and Anais’s school uniform is covered in blood.

Raised in foster care from birth and moved through twenty-three placements before she even turned seven, Anais has been let down by just about every adult she has ever met. Now a counter-culture outlaw, she knows that she can only rely on herself. And yet despite the parade of horrors visited upon her early life, she greets the world with the witty, fierce insight of a survivor.

Anais finds a sense of belonging among the residents of the Panopticon – they form intense bonds, and she soon becomes part of an ad hoc family. Together, they struggle against the adults that keep them confined. When she looks up at the watchtower that looms over the residents though, Anais knows her fate: she is an anonymous part of an experiment, and she always was. Now it seems that the experiment is closing in.

Named one of the best books of the year by the Times Literary Supplement and theScotsman, The Panopticon is an astonishingly haunting, remarkable debut novel. In language dazzling, energetic and pure, it introducesus to a heartbreaking young heroine and an incredibly assured and outstanding new voice in fiction.

About this title

Review

"It’s in the Margaret Atwood/The Handmaid’s Tale vein – very literary and suspenseful...Set in an altered reality – one that feels familiar and yet deeply unfamiliar, that embodies some of the dailiness of life, and yet slowly reveals itself to be a very different, much more sinister place." (Gillian Flynn, author of GONE GIRL)

"Each page sparkles with the ebullient and sinister magic of great storytelling ... An utterly magnificent achievement." (Irvine Welsh)

"Not just uncompromising and courageous. I think it's one of the most cunning and spirited novels I've read for years... An intelligent and deeply literary novel." (Ali Smith)

"Written with great verve and brio ... An astonishing debut, I have a feeling that Fagan is a name we will hear more of." (Jackie Kay)

"The 15-year-old heroine and narrator, has a rough, raw, joyous voice that leaps right off the page and grabs you by the throat...This punkish young philosopher is struggling with a terrible past, while battling sinister social workers...The glorious Anais is unforgettable." (The Times)

"It’s in the Margaret Atwood/The Handmaid’s Tale vein – very literary and suspenseful...Set in an altered reality – one that feels familiar and yet deeply unfamiliar, that embodies some of the dailiness of life, and yet slowly reveals itself to be a very different, much more sinister place."

"Each page sparkles with the ebullient and sinister magic of great storytelling ... An utterly magnificent achievement."

"Not just uncompromising and courageous. I think it's one of the most cunning and spirited novels I've read for years... An intelligent and deeply literary novel."

"Written with great verve and brio ... An astonishing debut, I have a feeling that Fagan is a name we will hear more of."

"The 15-year-old heroine and narrator, has a rough, raw, joyous voice that leaps right off the page and grabs you by the throat...This punkish young philosopher is struggling with a terrible past, while battling sinister social workers...The glorious Anais is unforgettable."

Book Description

JENNI FAGAN HAS BEEN NAMED AS ONE OF GRANTA MAGAZINE'S BEST OF YOUNG BRITISH NOVELISTS 2013

The Panopticon is a bold, shocking and heartbreaking story of a young girl in a care home

SHORTLISTED FOR THE JAMES TAIT BLACK PRIZE FOR FICTION AND THE DESMOND ELLIOTT PRIZE 2013

NAMED ONE OF THE 50 BEST SCOTTISH BOOKS OF THE LAST 50 YEARS BY THE SCOTSMAN

Edition details

• Publisher: Hogarth Pr
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0385347863
• ISBN 13: 9780385347860
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 282