The Bricks that Built the Houses: The Sunday Times Bestseller - Softcover

Tempest, Kae

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1408857332 ISBN 13: 9781408857335

Publisher: Bloomsbury Paperbacks, 2017

Synopsis

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE BOOKS ARE MY BAG BREAKTHROUGH AUTHOR AWARD

Kate Tempest's critically acclaimed debut novel, the literary companion to her Mercury-Prize nominated album Everybody Down, takes us into the beating heart of the capital in this multi-generational tale of drugs, desire and belonging

Young Londoners Becky, Harry and Leon are leaving town in a fourth-hand Ford Cortina with a suitcase full of money. They are running from jealous boyfriends, dead-end jobs, violent maniacs and disgruntled drug dealers, in the hope of escaping the restless tedium of life in south-east London - the place they have always called home.

*This book has been printed with two different cover designs. We are unable to accept requests for a specific cover. The different covers will be assigned to orders at random*

About this title

Review:

Wonderful (Lauren Laverne)

Soaring . Tempest's flair for language is tempered by her sense of rhythm and pace . Deeply affecting: cinematic in scope; touching in its empathic humanity . Tempest's voice - by turns raging and tender - never falters (New York Times)

This is a bold, bright, beguiling novel; a lustrous pageant that dazzles and grips . An irresistible, immersive snapshot of a changing world, delivered in woozy, staccato sentences . There's great pleasure to be taken from Tempest's debut . She may well be unstoppable (Sunday Telegraph)

One of the leading wordsmiths of our time . She turns her raw, observational skills in book form to the urban young growing up poor - sex, drugs and increasing poverty amid the looming threat of gentrification (Jon Snow)

It's hard not to be blown away by Kate Tempest . A stirring, post-Dickensian lens trained on London's lonely underbelly (Evening Standard)

This book is almost everything I hoped it would be. That is praise indeed, as I had high hopes ... As lyrical as it is gritty, and as devoted to (south-east) London as it is to humanity, with all its foibles (New Statesman)

Tempest has a knack for the devastating throwaway line - a skill-honed, no doubt, from years of rapping and spoken-word performances. Her work is rich with underlinable lines . Captivating (New Yorker)

Everything Kate tempest does comes from the same gnawing desire to tell stories and change the world ... The book covers come-ups, comedowns, gender identity, parents torn apart by activism and the brutal, beautiful face of survival against the odds ... Blistering **** (NME)

Explosive . Fresh and vivid visions of a familiar world . It recalls two other great, recent, experimental novels about being young: Jon McGregor's If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things and Eimear McBride's A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing. There's the same sense of daring and linguistic inventiveness, the same feeling of language pushed to its limits . It fairly flies off the page (Observer)

A story of accidental adventure and loss in what feels like London's boiling crucible of race, class and sexuality . This novel requires giving oneself over to its linguistic world . It seems not just to describe a contemporary world but chart the migratory and class movements that has led it to its current state (Andrew McMillan, Independent)

From the Author:

Kate Tempest started out when she was 16, rapping at strangers on night buses and pestering MCs to let her on the mic at raves. Ten years later she is a published playwright, novelist, poet and respected recording artist. Her work includes Balance, her first album with band Sound of Rum; Everything Speaks in its Own Way her first collection of poems, the critically acclaimed plays Wasted, Glasshouse and Hopelessly Devoted. Brand New Ancients, her self-performed epic poem to a live score, won the Ted Hughes Award 2012 and the Herald Angel at Edinburgh Fringe. It has sold out tours in the UK and New York and is published by Picador. Her second collection of poetry, Hold Your Own, will be published by Picador on October 2014. Her debut novel, The Bricks That Built The Houses, sold in a highly competitive auction to Bloomsbury and will be published in territories including the UK, US, France, Holland and Brazil in Spring 2015.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1408857332
• ISBN 13: 9781408857335
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 416