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Reread Nov 2020 for a group discussion in Reading the 20th Century, and just as impressive second time round
Deserved Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2018
Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2019

This year's Man Booker longlist contains plenty of surprises, but I suspect that none will be more welcome than this one. I will try to keep this review fairly short, so for a more detailed one I recommend this one from Gumble's Yard: /review/show...

The setting is based on Belfast at the height of the Troubles in the late '70s, but this is never explicitly stated, in fact very few proper names appear in this book. It is written in long dense paragraphs and very long chapters, which makes finding break points quite challenging, and it is a book that demands concentration.

The narrator recounts her experiences as an 18 year old, trying to steer a path through the minefield of gossip and political intrigues in Catholic Belfast - the author is old enough to remember these times and was brought up there.

The language and style is extraordinary and innovative. Rather than using names, characters are referenced using their place in the story. The Milkman of the title is an older and married "renouncer of the state" (i.e. a republican terrorist), who seems to be stalking the narrator, leading the community to believe that they are having an affair. This is not her only problem - she is also seen as a non-conformist just because she likes "reading-while-walking". Like many Catholics, the narrator comes from a large family, so brothers, sisters and brothers-in-law are given ordinals, other characters include the real milkman (a.k.a the man who doesn't love anybody), tablets girl, tablets girl's sister and "almost a year maybe-boyfriend". The mother is a powerful presence, and believes community rumours more than her own daughter, while brooding over her own poor choice of husband. Places and communities are also referred to indirectly, for example the "ten-minute area" (a derelict buffer zone), the "interface roads" and "the parks & reservoirs".

The language of control is another theme: "'She's fine, out and about' was the communal prognosis upon her, also the communal euphemism for 'mended though broken', itself another euphemism for 'in urgent need of medical care and attention', all of which the person in need unfortunately was not going to attend hospital to get."

It is interesting that Burns chose to write about this period now, given the current climate of social media surveillance and hate-driven politics, and the threats to Irish stability created by Brexit. NB After writing this review, I discovered that the book was mostly written more than 4 years before it was published, so well before the Brexit referendum, which makes it all the more prescient.

This may sound dark and claustrophobic, but the book also contains some very funny moments.

To finish, I can't resist a link to a song that covers some the same ground, the brilliant by Andy White.