Luckenbooth
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
ONE OF GRANTA MAGAZINE'S BEST OF YOUNG BRITISH NOVELISTS
SHORTLISTED FOR THE JAMES TAIT BLACK PRIZE FOR FICTION, THE DESMOND ELLIOTT PRIZE FOR THE PANOPTICON and THE GORDON BURN PRIZE 2021
'One of the most stunning literary experiences I've had in years' Irvine Welsh
'Dazzlingly ambitious' Douglas Stuart, author of Shuggie Bain
'A gloriously transgressive novel' Ian Rankin
1910, Edinburgh. Jessie, the devil's daughter, arrives on the doorstep of an imposing tenement building and knocks on a freshly painted wooden door. She has been sent by her father to bear a child for a wealthy couple, but, when things go wrong, she places a curse on the building and all who live there - and it lasts a century.
Caught in the crossfire are the residents of 10 Luckenbooth Close, and they all have their own stories to tell. While the world outside is changing, inside, the curse creeps up all nine floors and through each door. Soon, the building's longest kept secret - the truth of what happened to Jessie - will finally be heard.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The interwoven lives of the tenants of No. 10 Luckenbooth Close, a tenement in the heart of Edinburgh, drive this outstanding novel from Fagan (The Panopticon), set over the course of the 20th century. In 1910, young Jessie MacRae sails a coffin into the city's harbor, claiming to have killed the devil, her father; she has horns growing under her hair to prove it. Jessie has been sold to Mr. Udnam, the tenement's owner, to secretly bear his wife's child. Other distinctive characters include Flora, a prostitute and "hermaphrodite," who's working up the nerve to see if the man she loves still loves her; Levi, who's employed in a bone library and is building the skeleton of a mermaid; Agnes, a spiritualist who can summon ghosts; and Ivor, a miner who fears the light. Beat poet William S. Burroughs also makes an appearance. A murder early in the century casts a curse that hovers over the building in the years that follow, as demonstrated by the sound of cloven hoofs. All the tenants' stories enchant as the action builds to a satisfying conclusion. This highly original novel with its fairy tale quality will appeal to fantasy fans as well.
