Milkman: A Novel

Winner of the Man Booker Prize

“Everything about this novel rings true. . . . Original, funny, disarmingly oblique and unique.”—The Guardian

In an unnamed city, middle sister stands out for the wrong reasons. She reads while walking, for one. And she has been taking French night classes downtown. So when a local paramilitary known as the milkman begins pursuing her, she suddenly becomes “interesting,” the last thing she ever wanted to be. Despite middle sister’s attempts to avoid him—and to keep her mother from finding out about her maybe-boyfriend—rumors spread and the threat of violence lingers. Milkman is a story of the way inaction can have enormous repercussions, in a time when the wrong flag, wrong religion, or even a sunset can be subversive. Told with ferocious energy and sly, wicked humor, Milkman establishes Anna Burns as one of the most consequential voices of our day.

An Amazon Best Book of December 2018: No one in Milkman, winner of the 2018 Man Booker Prize, has a name. The place isn’t named either, although it appears to be 1970s Belfast, the city where Anna Burns grew up. There are very few paragraphs in this stream-of-consciousness novel that is essentially about borders—the borders we try to maintain between ourselves and others, borders between different families, between cities, between countries, belief systems, even with time itself. The story revolves around “middle sister,” who keeps to herself and only likes to read old books because she’s not particularly a fan of the 20th Century. When a local man with a dangerous reputation, a “paramililtary,” takes an unwelcome interest in her, she is unable to repel him and seems incapable of breaking the chain of gossip and innuendo that surrounds her as a result. The issues in Milkman seem very relevant to today–#MeToo, political Manichaeism, gossip and opinion presented as fact—but this is a modernist novel and should be viewed through that prism first. It won’t be every reader’s cup of tea. It’s a rare vintage from an island that has no name. –Chris Schluep, Amazon Book Review

Winner of the Man Booker Prize

“Everything about this novel rings true. . . . Original, funny, disarmingly oblique and unique.”—The Guardian

In an unnamed city, middle sister stands out for the wrong reasons. She reads while walking, for one. And she has been taking French night classes downtown. So when a local paramilitary known as the milkman begins pursuing her, she suddenly becomes “interesting,” the last thing she ever wanted to be. Despite middle sister’s attempts to avoid him—and to keep her mother from finding out about her maybe-boyfriend—rumors spread and the threat of violence lingers. Milkman is a story of the way inaction can have enormous repercussions, in a time when the wrong flag, wrong religion, or even a sunset can be subversive. Told with ferocious energy and sly, wicked humor, Milkman establishes Anna Burns as one of the most consequential voices of our day.