Synopsis
What the critics wrote about
Emotionally Weird
The lustre, energy and panache of her writing are as striking as ever in this, her third novel... Funny, bold and memorable
Helen Dunmore, The Times
Lively... very funny
Sunday Telegraph
Complex, multi-layered and beautifully written... brimming with quirky characters and original storytelling... Kate Atkinson has struck gold with this unique offering
Time Out
A truly comic novel achingly funny in parts challenging and executed with wit and mischief... an hilarious and magical trip
Meera Syal, Daily Express
Her novels are remarkable both in and of themselves, and as evidence of an important emerging body of work from a brilliant and profoundly original writer
Daily Telegraph
A challenging work of fiction... brilliantly original
Mirror
Atkinsons strength as a writer lies in her talent for observational humour
Guardian
Sends jolts of pleasure off the page... capable of causing loud and involuntary cackling on public transport. Atkinsons funniest foray yet... a novel for people who love novels... eccentric, unstoppably entertaining, it is a work of Dickensian or even Shakespearean plenty... will be enjoyed hugely by both literary and non-literary readers
Scotsman
Atkinson is brilliantly, defiantly playful with the stuff of fiction
New Statesman
Her descriptive powers are striking. She is also witty... thought-provoking and nonconformist
Sunday Times
A novel purely for fun... entirely to be recommended
Independent
Really comic, really tragic, bracingly unsentimental
Boston Sunday Globe
Her enigmatic and comic flair rise to greater heights in this reductio ad absurdum
Sunday Tribune
Her inventive energy, unfettered by realism, make this roller coaster of a novel a highly entertaining read
Mail on Sunday
A sparkling comic meditation on how authors choose to tell their stories
Entertainment Weekly
Atkinson writes with the most finely tuned literary instincts... funny, clever and strangely moving
Caledonian
Fairly crackles with energy, wit and the pleasure of writing
Lesley Glaister, Literary Review
A full-bore, old-fashioned yarn the kind that keeps you turning pages, hurrying toward the denouement long after youve told yourself youre going to bed
Washington Post
Subtle, evocative and wonderfully funny
Glasgow Herald
A brilliant and gripping piece of fiction that not only proves Atkinsons adeptness as a storyteller but also firmly establishes her as one of the most remarkable writers of recent times
Yorkshire Post
Atkinson has found her best subject, thereby letting out the secret to writing a truly funny comic novel
Newsday
On a peat and heather island off the west coast of Scotland, Effie and her mother Nora take refuge in the large mouldering house of their ancestors and tell each other stories. Nora, at first, recounts nothing that Effie really wants to hear, like who her father was variously Jimmy, Jack, or Ernie. Effie tells of her life at college in Dundee, the land of cakes and William Wallace, where she lives in a lethargic relationship with Bob, a student who never goes to lectures, seldom gets out of bed, and to whom the Klingons are as real as the French and the Germans (more real than the Luxemburgers). But strange things are happening. Why is Effie being followed? Is someone killing the old people? And where is the mysterious yellow dog?
Also by
KATE
ATKINSON
Behind the Scenes
at the Museum
A surprising, tragicomic and subversive family saga set in York, Kate Atkinsons prizewinning first novel, like all her novels, has a mystery at its heart.
Little short of a masterpiece
Daily Mail
Human Croquet
A multilayered, moving novel about the forest of Arden, a girl who drops in and out of time, and the heartrending mystery of a lost mother.
Brilliant and engrossing
Penelope Fitzgerald
Not the End of the World
Kate Atkinsons first collection of short stories playful and profound.
Moving and funny, and crammed with incidental wisdom
Sunday Times
Case Histories
The first novel to feature Jackson Brodie, the former police detective, who finds himself investigating three separate cold murder cases in Cambridge, while still haunted by a tragedy in his own past.
The best mystery of the decade
Stephen King
One Good Turn
Jackson Brodie, in Edinburgh during the Festival,
is drawn into a vortex of crimes and mysteries,
each containing a kernel of the next,
like a set of nesting Russian dolls.
The most fun Ive had with a novel this year
Ian Rankin
When Will There Be Good News?
A six-year-old girl witnesses an appalling crime. Thirty years later, Jackson Brodie is on a fatal journey that will hurtle him into its aftermath.
Genius... insightful, often funny, life-affirming
Sunday Telegraph
For Lesley Denby, ne Allison, with love
With thanks to:
Helen Clyne, Lesley Denby, Helen How, the Howard Hotel (Edinburgh), Maureen Lenehan, Gareth McLean, David Mattock, Martin Myers, Ali Smith, Sarah Wood.
The University of Dundee portrayed in this book (and especially the departments of English and Philosophy) bear little resemblance to real life, past or present. Neither are any of the characters portrayed based on anyone real, either living or dead.
Thats a great deal to make one word mean, Alice said in a thoughtful tone.
When I make a word do a lot of work like that, said Humpty Dumpty, I always pay it extra.
Oh! said Alice. She was much too puzzled to make any other remark.
Ah, you should see em come round me of a Saturday night, Humpty Dumpty went on, wagging his head gravely from side to side: for to get their wages, you know.
(Through the Looking-Glass, Lewis Carroll)
EMOTIONALLY WEIRD A COMIC NOVEL Kate Atkinson
The Hand of Fate
(First Draft)
Inspector Jack Gannet drove into Saltsea-on-Sea along the coast road. Todays sun (not that he believed it to be a new one every day) was already climbing merrily in the sky. It was a beautiful morning. Shame it was about to be spoilt by the Lucky Lady and her cargo one very unlucky lady. One very dead lady. Jack Gannet sighed, this job didnt get any easier. Jack Gannet had been in the force longer than he cared to remember. He was a straightforward, old-fashioned kind of detective. He had no strange tics or eccentricities he didnt do crosswords, he wasnt Belgian, he certainly wasnt a woman. He was a man suited to his profession. What he wasnt, was happy. He didnt want to be dealing with a dead body on a glorious morning like this. Especially not on an empty stomach.
Madame Astarti didnt know about the dead body yet. She was having some trouble opening her eyes. They were glued shut by sleep and mascara and one too many gins in The Crab and Bucket last night with Sandra and Brian. Madame Astarti sighed and groped blindly around on her bedside table for her lighter and a packet of Players No.6 and inhaled deeply on a cigarette. She loved the smell of nicotine in the morning.
Seagulls were clog-dancing on the roof above her head, heralding a brand new day in Saltsea-on-Sea. Through a gap in the curtains she could see that the sun was the colour of egg-yolks. Sunrise, she thought to herself, a little daily miracle. It would be funny, wouldnt it, if it didnt happen one morning? Well, probably not very funny at all really because everything on earth would die. The really big sleep.
