Gunk
'One of the year's standout books' SUNDAY TIMES
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- USD 15.99
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- USD 15.99
Descripción editorial
**Longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize**
**Selected as a Book of the Summer 2025 by the Guardian, The Times, Sunday Times, independent.co.uk, Vogue and Marie Claire**
**Selected as a 2025 book to look out for by the Guardian, Sunday Times, Irish Times, independent.co.uk, Cosmopolitan, Elle and Service95**
'Raw, original and provoking, Saba Sams is Britain's brightest debut novelist' Vogue
'An immersive story about love and the softening borders around what family can be' Sheena Patel
'A joy to read' The Times
'An intimate and tender exploration of love's possibilities' Sophie Mackintosh
'Raw, powerful and beautiful' Observer
'A nuanced exploration of friendship, queerness and love' Jessica Andrews
'I loved this' Nicola Dinan
Jules has been divorced from her ex-husband Leon for five years, but she still works alongside him at Gunk, the grotty student nightclub he owns in central Brighton. She spends her nights serving shots and watching, from behind the bar, as Leon flirts with students on the dancefloor.
But then Leon hires nineteen-year-old Nim to work the bar – and her arrival jolts Jules awake for the first time in years. When Nim discovers she's pregnant, Jules agrees to help. As the months pass, and the relationship between the two women grows increasingly intimate and perplexing, it emerges that Nim has her own unexpected gifts to give.
Now, alone in her small flat, Jules is holding a baby, just twenty-four hours old, who still smells of Nim. But no one knows where Nim is, or if she's coming back. What could the future – for Jules, Nim, and this unnamed baby – possibly look like?
Raw, exhilarating, tender and wise, Gunk is an electrifying debut novel exploring love and desire, safety and destruction, chaos and control – and family in all its forms.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sams's intimate debut centers on a complicated relationship between two British women. It opens with Julia, the middle-aged narrator, caring for a newborn baby in Brighton, after the baby's mother, Nim, disappeared from the hospital. Julia reflects on how she wound up in the seaside party town at 18, desperate to escape the conventional life laid out for her by her "placid, attentive" parents. In flashbacks, she recounts falling for Leon, the charismatic and volatile owner of Gunk, a grimy nightclub, in her late 20s. What began as an adventure curdles into marriage, toil, and divorce, as Julia works behind the bar, propping up the failing venue and her now ex-husband, who continues to emotionally drain her. Her life tilts when Leon hires Nim, a teenage runaway. Julia is enchanted by Nim's unstudied confidence and impressed by her skill (she claims to have worked as a bartender since she was 14, having lied about her age). When Nim sleeps with Leon, Julia's feelings of betrayal expose the fragile dynamics between the trio. As the novel unfolds, Julia gradually reveals why Nim disappeared. Sams's writing is assured and muscular ("Sometimes I could grope around inside myself and come up surprised," Julia observes), and the novel subtly explores Julia's motivations in caring for the baby and what a happy family might look like. This is striking.
