Bailey's/Orange Women's Fiction Group discussion

What books do you want to be reading in the New Year?
Please nominate books from the 2014 list.

okay...i am going to nominate A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing, by Eimear McBride, the 2014 winner of the prize.

from the book's description:

Eimear McBride's debut tells, with astonishing insight and in brutal detail, the story of a young woman's relationship with her brother, and the long shadow cast by his childhood brain tumour. Not so much a stream of consciousness, as an unconscious railing against a life that makes little sense, and a shocking and intimate insight into the thoughts, feelings and chaotic sexuality of a vulnerable and isolated protagonist, to read A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing is to plunge inside its narrator's head, experiencing her world first-hand. This isn't always comfortable - but it is always a revelation.

Touching on everything from family violence to sexuality and the personal struggle to remain intact in times of intense trauma, McBride writes with singular intensity, acute sensitivity and mordant wit. A Girl is a Half-formed Thing is moving, funny – and alarming. It is a book you will never forget.

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i read the first few pages of the book when it came out in canada. it is a challenging read - not hard, but mcbride's style is modern/stream-of-concsiousness-type writing. so it requires good focus (for me, anyway.) so i set it aside, with plans to come back to it.

it also seems to me a book that would greatly benefit from being read with friends/in a group.

I would like to nominate The Flamethrowers. It seems to have either rave reviews or really bad ones - I like a good argument! Most seem to be good, including a few of my GR friends whose opinion I respect. It takes place in NYC during the 70's which is an era that seems rather fascinating....

I know it is in USA libraries, which is nice for those of us down here south of the 49th parallel!

i was in the raving camp with 'the flamethrowers'. :) i loved it, and came away so impressed w/ kushner and her writing. i think it makes for a great discussion book too, so definitely worth everyone's consideration!!

I don't think it made it into libraries here, not my local ones anyway, but there are some second-hand copies and a reasonably priced kindle version available.

Val wrote: "I don't think it made it into libraries here, not my local ones anyway, but there are some second-hand copies and a reasonably priced kindle version available."

Hi Val, I don't know where you are in the UK, but Surrey libraries have 55 copies, so it is already available to at least some of us Brits.

Jennifer wrote: "okay...i am going to nominate A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing, by Eimear McBride, the 2014 winner of the ..."

I second this - I started it months ago and put it down for one reason or another... But I am very keen to pick it up and start again. It is completely original and my reading of it would definitely benefit from group input.

jen, i am so glad!! i definitely feel as though i need support in reading this one. my 17yo niece was here the day i received the book, so as i was reading the first bit, i read passages out loud to her. (she's very bright and reads beyond her years!) and she was, like, WTF?! then she sat with it for a while, reading further, set it down and gave her head a giant shake. she found it so intriguing...but there's a lot going on on each page!

It was fascinating to me how once I stopped 'thinking' and just read, it worked. But there is a lot going on there and it is screaming for group discussion!

yes -- i found the same thing. once i got past the thinking so hard and going 'what IS this?', it went much smoother. :)

I'll nominate

An immensely powerful first novel set in Germany and the Soviet Union during World War II, its ambition and achievement reminiscent of Rachel Seiffert's 'The Dark Room', Hans Fallada's 'Alone in Berlin', and Helen Dunmore's 'The Siege'. Quotes my library!!

I recently read 'The Undertaking' and could hardly put it down - read it in a couple of sittings!

Judy wrote: "I recently read 'The Undertaking' and could hardly put it down - read it in a couple of sittings!"

ooh - that makes me want to read it!

The poll is currently a draw between A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing and The Undertaking, so if anyone who has not voted yet has a preference, please vote soon.

The January book will be The Undertaking by Audrey Magee.
It won as a second choice by members who had voted for different books.