So… as many of your probably know, The Man Booker Prize long-list was announced in July. I am yet to read all of this year’s nominations, in fact I’ve only read two – but I was OVER THE MOON to find said two on the list: Sophie Mackintosh’s The Water Cure, and Daisy Johnson’s Everything Under. In that mystical, intoxicating way books can, these novels got under my skin. Ever since reading the first page of both (and long after reading the last!), they have returned again and again to me. Unbidden, suddenly and completely, with an intensity I’d usually associate with memory. I can smell them, taste the air, feel the weight of their skies.
Johnson and Mackintosh do not shy from darkness – these books (amazingly, both debut novels by young women) feel dangerous, they feel necessary. And they are astonishingly beautiful and moving. Well worth the dive.
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