Martin John

Description

Finalist for the 2015 Giller PrizeAmongThe National PostsTop 5 Books of 2015AmongThe Toronto StarsTop 5 Fiction Books of 2015AmongLargehearted BoysFavourite Novels of 2015One ofQuill & QuiresBooks of the Year, 2015AmongThe Edmonton JournalsTop 5 Books of 2015A 49th Shelf Book of the Year, 2015AmongNOW TorontosTop 10 Books of 2015Martin Johns mam says that she is glad he is done with it. But is Martin John done with it? He says he wants it to stop, his mother wants it to stop, we all want it to stop. But is it really what Martin John wants? He had it in his mind to do it and he did it. Harm was done when he did it. Harm would continue to be done. Who will stop Martin John? Will you stop him? Should she stop him?From Anakana Schofield, the brilliant author of the best-sellingMalarky, comes a darkly comic novel circuiting through the mind, motivations and preoccupations of a character many women have experienced but few have understood quite so well. The result confirms Schofield as one of the bravest and most innovative authors at work in English today.PRAISE FORMARTIN JOHNDeploying some serious literary gumption, Schofields frequently hilarious, and distinctly modernist, linguistic games are always gainfully employed in the uneasy, indelicate task of placing her reader nose to nose with the humanity of a sex offender and a sex offenders mother.Eimear McBride,The New York Times Book Review(Editors Choice)[A] frenetic, risk-taking novel deliberately cryptic and bleakly funny.The New YorkerIts hard not to think ofLolitawhile reading Anakana SchofieldsMartin John In the cadenced, hypnotic style of Gertrude Stein, Ms. Schofield renders [Martin Johns] consciousness through a kind of staccato anti-poetry The result is a grotesquely memorable character pursued through his mazes of routines and obsessions and rationalizations.Wall Street JournalAn important and brilliantly unconventional work.Publishers Weekly, starred reviewThe power of [Martin John] comes from its unpredictability [Schofield] walks the tricky line between creating empathy for a character without lessening the readers understanding of the horror of his actions.Tobias Carroll,Electric LiteratureMartin John is a profound, innovative, and poignant meditation on identity.David Gutowski,Largehearted BoyFunny, distressing, and complicated.The GuardianMartin Johnis a comic tour de force Many writers have brazenly wandered into the minefield of mental illness, but few with Schofields peculiar decency and candour in not only depicting Martin Johns scheming turmoil, but also the bewildered righteousness of those surrounding him.Eileen Battersby,The Irish TimesDazzling With its discomfiting portraiture brain-puzzle of a storytelling technique, and utter assurance,Martin Johneasily matches the tremendous promise ofMalarky, Schofields debut.MacleansBrilliant While Schofield has digested all of postmodernisms tics and tricks, her writing is fundamentally empathetic, and the various interventions feel like necessary attempts to render the unspeakable, rather than as flashy mystifications of a straightforward narrative. In its social critique,Martin Johnhas much in common with the brilliant journalism of Ann Brocklehurst and Ed Tubb, but as an avant-garde novelist, Schofield is in a class unto herself.David B. Hobbs,The Globe & MailExhilarating The weird and recursive prose makes the language startlingly vivid, and Martin Johns fractured narrative perspective is positively adrenal Schofields ability to get us jacked up from exquisitely written and deeply troubling jokes about a middle-aged public masturbator makes [her] one of the highest-flying and funniest working today.Emily Keeler,The National PostThe novel all your favourite novelists will be reading.Mark Medley,The Globe & MailLanguage aside, innovation aside, what makes this book so compelling is the utterly convincing portrait of its troubled and troubling protagonist, Martin John. You might not like Martin John or want to run into him on the subway, but he will stay with you long after you have put the novel down, not least because of those uncomfortable bits of him that youll recognize in yourself.Nino Ricci,CBC BooksMartin Johnis the best novel I have read in years: long after reading it I feel that I am still reading it, being read by it.GeistDarkly funny, saddening, and compassionate [Martin John] shows readers how postmodern writing techniques can make some small sort of sense out of the seemingly insensible.Foreword ReviewsMartin John, Schofields second novel, performs the paranoiac drama between identity, knowledge, recognition, and desire.Full StopVirtuosic [Schofield] has crafted a wholly believable journey into the mind of a deeply warped young man An astoundingly focused piece of writing.The Georgia StraightSchofields trademark Celtic-Gothic sensibility is evident once again as Martin John explores madness, dark comedy, isolation and sexual compulsion.Toronto StarFearless Pick [up this book] if you are enthralled by what the novel with its variable and elastic form can do as Schofield pushes the boundaries in careful calibrations of narrative structure and language that bites.The Vancouver Sun[A] stylistically audacious second novel.Steven Beattie,Quill & QuireEffective and captivating The authors tone in these segments is coolly detached and nearly journalistic, generating in the reader a sensation of voyeurism that is profoundly unsettling and in keeping with the experience of readingMartin John.Shawn Syms,Quill& QuireProfane, strange, hilarious, and necessary,Martin Johnis a beguiling triumph.Patrick deWitt, author ofThe Sisters BrothersThis is a very moving and terrific book.Daniel Handler, author ofWe Are PiratesWritten with all the electrifying humour of her award-winning debutMalarky, exhibiting a startling grasp of the loops and obsessions of a molesters mind,Martin Johnis a testament to Canadian Irish authors Anakana Schofields skill and audacityand stands as a brilliant, Beckettian exploration of a mans long slide into deviancy.The IrishPostThis is dangerous writing Schofield is giving voice to a marginalized perspective, one that is rarely heard or heard this clearly But this is whyMartin Johnis necessary: Schofield is not a moralist, and her interest in human behaviourhonourable or deplorableallows angles of light into neglected spaces of the human condition Brave and sensitive.The Winnipeg Free PressConveyed in hilarious, deadpan beautiful prose Schofields first achievement is to burrow into Martin Johns rackety mind. Her second crucial achievement is to turn this unsettling apprehension into a necessary, extraordinary act of empathy.Alison Gillmor,The Winnipeg ReviewSchofield gives us a complex and unrelenting portrait of a brain that will not co-operate.Edmonton JournalSpectacularly written Youve never read anything like it.NOW TorontoBrilliant FromMartin Johns uncanny repetitions and ellipses, Schofield forges beautiful and thrilling prose-poetry. The atmosphere of her language is stunningly distinctive.Literary ReviewA grown-up tale of how blighted lives carry on . . . fizz[ing] with surface humour.The SpectatorA bold novel Schofield shows her skill through precise, singular and forceful prose.The Sunday Telegraph, 5/5 StarsNecessary and urgent Martin Johnroars to life; chaotic, compelling and disjointed from the very first page.The Sunday Business PostMartin Johnis not interested in being an easy book. Not easy on its readers, and not easy on its title character. [but] what makes this book so necessary is the way it makes us see what wed rather not see.PRISMMartin Johnis a darkly comic story about a deeply troubled man an intelligent, deeply thought-provokingand bravenovel.Reading MattersHumorous fast-paced for a novel about a sexual deviant,Martin Johnis positivelybreezy.Pickle Me ThisThis is literature serving its most essential function: illuminating the darkest recesses; dragging the unspoken and suppressed to the foreground of our consciousness; throwing light across the blackest of humanitys vistas. This is writing at its most fearless: visceral and searing, yet textured and nuanced; the darkest of comedy and the deepest of insight, combined in a manner unique to Anakana Schofield.Donal Ryan, author ofThe Thing About DecemberandThe Spinning HeartYou might hold your breath while reading this novel. The story transgresses the body with or without our permission, and illuminates important ideas we ordinarily look away from. And yet it is now, more than ever, that we need to reread the body.Lidia Yuknavitch, author ofThe Chronology of WaterMartin John is singular in contemporary literature. [The novel takes] a deeply imagined, almost operatic view of marginal characters trapped in the absurdities and perversions of systems: mental, social, and familial. Anakana uses devastatingly specific prose that conversely portrays the poetry of human suffering. Moving, profoundly human, insightful, and darkly humorous.Thalia Field, author ofBird Lovers, BackyardAnakana Schofields first book,Malarky, was one of my favourite books last year. This one is different; it is darker, creepier. But it is every bit as clever and bold.Consumed by InkPRAISE FORMALARKYCaustic, funny and moving.Emma DonoghueElectrically alive.Colum McCannA fine book.Margaret AtwoodQuirky, racous, and utterly unconventional.Readers DigestPotent and fresh In certain moments, we are not so far from Becketts Molloy Our Woman comes close to enlivening not only the political and the personal but also the human.San Francisco ChronicleDelightfully offbeat Schofield offers a deft and altogether welcome comic touch One of the seasons best reads.The National Post