Caroline's Bikini - Hardcover

Gunn, Kirsty

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0571339328 ISBN 13: 9780571339327

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 2018

Synopsis

'Alright' I said, 'I'll try...' This is how Emily Stuart opens her intricate tale of a classic love affair that becomes Caroline's Bikini: a swirling cocktail of infatuation, obsession, and imagination.

The moment that Emily's friend Evan Gordonstone - a successful middle-aged financier - meets Caroline Beresford - a glamorous former horsewoman, and now housewife, hostess, and landlady - there is a 'PING!' At least, that's how Evan describes it to Emily when he persuades her to record his story: the story of falling into unrequited love, which is as old as Western literature itself. Thus begins a hypnotic series of conversations set against the beguiling backdrop of West London's bars, fuelled in intensity by endless G&Ts and Q&As. From the depths of mid-winter to July's hot swelter, Emily's narration of Evan's passion for Caroline will take him to the brink of his own destruction.

Written in a voice so playful, so charismatic, and so thoughtfully aware of the responsibilities of fiction it can only be by Kirsty Gunn, Caroline's Bikini is a swooning portrait of courtly love - in a modern world not celebrated for its restraint and abstraction. Ready. Steady. Go!

About this title

Review:

A restless innovator ... Trumps even her own past work in its audacity ... Guts and cheek to spare ... Reminded me of James's serpentine late style as much as it did the prose of Virginia Woolf or Gunn's compatriot, Katherine Mansfield ... Caroline's Bikini nods to its Modernist ancestors but never grovels to them ... Gunn's serious playfulness will make you think again about every convention of fiction we lazily take for granted ... Nothing much may happen. But the feeling - and the writing - overflows. Author: Boyd Tonkin Source: Financial Times

What remains clear is Gunn's cleverness. She is a writer who flicks language about, this way and that, inspecting its underbelly. .. If one is judging Caroline's Bikini, a metafictional homage to Renaissance love, as an erudite work that erudite readers will "get", it is seductively successful ... For many readers, Caroline's Bikini will resemble the process of discovering multiple rooms and delighting in how they are intricately linked. Author: Rebecca Swirsky Source: New Statesman

Admirably original. Author: Stephanie Cross Source: Daily Mail

Gunn has written a blissfully anarchic and - indeed - inspiring novel about the futility of writing: a delightful paradox in itself. Author: Joanna Kavenna Source: Literary Review

One reads the book with a purring pleasure, relishing Gunn's cleverness, wit, range of reference and literary sensibility ... She has written a very clever book which will provide rich material for study and practice. Author: Allan Massie Source: Scotsman BOOKS OF THE YEAR

A bold and brainy enterprise. Author: Anthony Cummins Source: Observer

Gunn's playful and endearing voice makes it a joy to read. Who knew postmodernism could be this fun? Author: Francesca Carington Source: Tatler

This truly is an extraordinarily brilliant achievement ... You won't be surprised to hear that I read the whole thing, greedy for more and sorry the book ever had to end. Undoubtedly one of my books of the year for 2018 and highly recommended. Author: Harriet Devine Source: Shiny New Books

'A clever and unusual take on the classic unrequited love story.' Source: i newspaper

A witty and intricate novel ... Gunn is such a wonderfully versatile writer, always smart and lyrical and brave, and I found Caroline's Bikini formally adventurous, in new ways ... A meta-meta-love story, as concerned with how we tell stories to ourselves and others about our passions, as with the passion itself ... I loved the way the playfulness of the prose is intercut with her erudite excursions about Petrarch or Milton; and also with the emotional texture of unrequited love. Source: Sylvia Brownrigg

Review:

"Remarkable ... demands that readers put themselves into the same headspace as they would before embarking on a novel by, say, William Faulkner, James Joyce or Woolf."--Financial Times

Gunn has written a blissfully anarchic and inspiring novel about the futility of writing; a delightful paradox in itself."--Literary Review

"Gunn's playful and endearing voice makes it a joy to read. Who knew postmodernism could be this fun?"--Tatler

"'[a] bold and brainy enterprise.'"--Observer

"Kirsty Gunn is a deep thinker; a maverick, an entertainer, and a great writer."--Deborah Levy

"[Her writing is] a perfect, witty riposte to that casual dismissal, and a lesson in how much goes on beneath the surface of everyday life ... Gunn traces hidden emotional topographies with insight and attentiveness to form and language which marks her previous work ... delicate, unsettling and revelatory."--Observer

"An author of undeniable talent."--Sunday Times

Gunn has always been a notably original writer ... Her writing is extraordinarily controlled, rich, and melodic ... "--Guardian

"A restless innovator ... Trumps even her own past work in its audacity ... Guts and cheek to spare ... Reminded me of James's serpentine late style as much as it did the prose of Virginia Woolf or Gunn's compatriot, Katherine Mansfield ... Caroline's Bikini nods to its Modernist ancestors but never grovels to them ... Gunn's serious playfulness will make you think again about every convention of fiction we lazily take for granted ... Nothing much may happen. But the feeling -- and the writing -- overflows."--Boyd Tonkin, Financial Times

"A really superb, very readable novel."--Guardian

"...when restless innovators such as Ali Smith, Nicola Barker, Sarah Hall, Will Self, Jon McGregor, Deborah Levy, Gwendoline Riley and Eimear McBride set much of the agenda for fiction...Kirsty Gunn belongs in this exemplary few..."--Financial Times

About this edition

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0571339328
• ISBN 13: 9780571339327
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352