Milkman

Milkman by Anna Burns won the Man Booker Prize a couple of years ago and it's no surprise. It's an impressive achievement of voice and, at the same time, of social commentary. I've seen complaints about its lack of a plot, and it's true that the central conflict could probably have been presented and resolved in a short story, but there is so much more to admire here than just the plot. The narrator is a young woman who has a boyfriend (or a “maybe-boyfriend”) but she is also being stalked by a “Renouncer”—a member of the IRA, presumably, opposed to the British occupation of Northern Ireland. Instantly, rumors abound that she is having an affair with the Renouncer, and no one will believe her denials. There are many wonderful side-plots as well, including her relationships with her boyfriend and her mother, also with her siblings, and with others in the community. I listened to the beautiful audiobook of this novel, which helped me get through it, but I also borrowed a copy from the library so I could also read some of it on the page. I'm not sure I would have liked it as much if I had only read it, because the pages are dense with type—long paragraphs, no dialogue breaks, syntax that on the page seems to go nowhere. But on the whole, I liked it very much.