If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things

In this Booker Prize-nominated "dream of a novel," ordinary middle-class lives converge and collide one summer day in England (The Times).

In delicate, intricately observed close-up, this novel makes us privy to the private lives of residents of a quiet street over the course of a single day.

If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things explores the hopes, fears, and unspoken despairs of a diverse community: a single father with painfully scarred hands; a group of young club-goers just home from an all-night rave, sweetly high and mulling over vague dreams; and the nervous young man at number 18 who collects weird urban junk and is haunted by the specter of unrequited love. What eventually unites them is an utterly surprising and terrible twist of fate that shatters their everyday, ordinary tranquility, and all that they take for granted.

A prose poem of a novel with a mystery at its center that "recalls To The Lighthouse or Mrs. Dalloway" (The Times), If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things was the recipient of the Somerset Maugham Award and the Betty Trask Award, and was named one of the best books of the year by the Los Angeles Times. It is, in the words of Ali Smith, "a tremendous read."

"A wonderful evocation of the beauty and horror of the literally everyday." -- Booklist, starred review

"Absolutely resplendent . . . does for urban England what John Cheever did for Westchester County." -- Bookpage

Author: Jon McGregor
Publisher: Mariner Books
Published: 11/04/2003
Pages: 275
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.63lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.50w x 0.69d
ISBN: 9780618344581
Audience: Young Adult


Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 09/01/2003 pg. 1093
Booksense '76 Nov/Dec 2003 11/01/2003 pg. 1
Booklist 10/15/2003 pg. 390
Publishers Weekly 10/27/2003 pg. 45
BookPage 12/01/2003 pg. 49
Booklist 11/15/2003 pg. 575

About the Author
McGregor, Jon: - Jon McGregor published his first novel in Britain in 2002 to critical acclaim, and was inspired in part by the phenomenal media attention that surrounded the death of Princess Diana. He has written numerous short stories leading, in part, to the development of some of his novels. He founded the Nottingham Writer's Studio in 2006 and also taught a course at Arvon. McGregor lives in Nottingham, England.