Darkmans

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Darkmans is an exhilarating, extraordinary examination of the ways in which history can play jokes on us all... If History is just a sick joke which keeps on repeating itself, then who exactly might be telling it, and why? Could it be John Scogin, Edward IV's infamous court jester, whose favorite pastime was to burn people alive - for a laugh? Or could it be Andrew Boarde, Henry VIII's physician, who kindly wrote John Scogin's biography? Or could it be a tiny Kurd called Gaffar whose days are blighted by an unspeakable terror of - uh - salad? Or a beautiful, bulimic harpy with ridiculously weak bones? Or a man who guards Beckley Woods with a Samurai sword and a pregnant terrier?
Darkmans is a very modern book, set in Ashford [a ridiculously modern town], about two very old-fashioned subjects: love and jealousy. It's also a book about invasion, obsession, displacement and possession, about comedy, art, prescription drugs and chiropody. And the main character? The past, which creeps up on the present and whispers something quite dark - quite unspeakable - into its ear.
The third of Nicola Barker's narratives of the Thames Gateway, Darkmans is an epic novel of startling originality.

“In this epic, delirium-inducing Mad Tea Party ride, we’re parachuted into the lives of some eccentric English everymen…it’s a novel like no other—hilarious, bizarre, and possible mind-altering. A-” — Entertainment Weekly
“Once you’re in the grip of this broad, funny, deeply strange book—once you and "Darkmans" are grappling with each other—neither you nor the novel is likely to let go. . . . To suggest that this dazzling, complex novel has anything quite as conventional as a plot would be misleading. . . . Darkmans is a rich exploration of our own layered present.” — New York Times Book Review
“A whopping literary hit. . . fat and sassy, vulgar and brainy. . . . This appears to be Barker’s point: however we may try to pave over the past, it keeps seeping through the sleek surfaces of modern life.” — Salon.com
“Hilarious and erudite, spooky and unconventional, “Darkmans” is a dazzling achievement. I haven’t read this year’s winner of the Man Booker Prize, but I suspect Nicola Barker was robbed.” — Washington Post
“History, in this novel’s presentation, isn’t a smoothly flowing river; it’s clogged, jammed, with all sorts of debris that floats up at unexpected moments. For Barker, the past is most vibrantly – and visibly – alive in language, in the way it seeps into modern usage…“Darkmans” is for readers who enjoy nimble wordplay; for those patient enough to wait as the characters’ lives slowly intersect and draw closer to an ensemble encounter.” — Los Angeles Times Book Review
"This epic comedy, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, demands total immersion. And those willing to take the plunge will be rewarded by its ferocious humor and exuberant wordplay. . . . A feat to behold." — Booklist (starred review)
“The Man Booker Prize is often criticised for being too serious and elitist. My gift to the naysayers is Nicola Barker’s Darkmans, a tour-de-force of contemporary life set in Ashford, Kent. When it was long-listed, the writer and journalist D J Taylor described Darkmans as a “left-field 838-page weird out”; and I celebrated. Barker is a comic genius. Her imagination is incendiary.. . . . Darkmans is the novel of the decade.” — Ruth Scurr, The Daily Telegraph
“The book of the year for me. . . . It’s a novel of prestigious craft, energy, risk, sleight of hand and linguistic generosity and acuity, and a funny, faster-than-virtual take on what’s contemporary and what’s history and how the twain meet and never will meet.” — Ali Smith, The Observer
“The work of a very fine storyteller indeed.” — The Times (London)
“Barker’s surreal and satirical vision of modern life...a whirligig version of Thackeray’s Vanity Fair.” — Financial Times