Everything Under

Name: Everything Under
Brand: Brilliance Audio
Availability: InStock
Author: Daisy Johnson
ISBN: 9781721335190

Author: Daisy Johnson

Narrator: Esther Wane

Unabridged: 7 hr 12 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Brilliance Audio

Published: 01/15/2019

Categories: Fiction, Literary Fiction

Synopsis

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2018 MAN BOOKER PRIZEAn eerie, watery reimagining of the Oedipus myth set on the canals of Oxford, from the author of FenThe dictionary doesn’t contain every word. Gretel, a lexicographer by trade, knows this better than most. She grew up on a houseboat with her mother, wandering the canals of Oxford and speaking a private language of their own invention. Her mother disappeared when Gretel was a teen, abandoning her to foster care, and Gretel has tried to move on, spending her days updating dictionary entries.One phone call from her mother is all it takes for the past to come rushing back. To find her, Gretel will have to recover buried memories of her final, fateful winter on the canals. A runaway boy had found community and shelter with them, and all three were haunted by their past and stalked by an ominous creature lurking in the canal: the bonak. Everything and nothing at once, the bonak was Gretel’s name for the thing she feared most. And now that she’s searching for her mother, she’ll have to face it.In this electrifying reinterpretation of a classical myth, Daisy Johnson explores questions of fate and free will, gender fluidity, and fractured family relationships. Everything Under―a debut novel whose surreal, watery landscape will resonate with fans of Fen―is a daring, moving story that will leave you unsettled and unstrung.

About Daisy Johnson

Daisy Johnson is the author of the short-story collection Fen. She is the winner of the Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Prize, the A. M. Heath Prize, and the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. She lives in Oxford, England, by the river.

Reviews

Goodreads review by emma

well. i thought i was back in my magical realism era. i have been having a lot of success lately with Experimental Literary Fiction About Mothers And Daughters, and since the synopsis implies that this book is literally exactly that, i thought we had a success on our hands. also, look at that cover. bu......more

Goodreads review by Charlotte

"The language I grew up speaking was one no one else spoke. So I was always going to be isolated, lonely, uncomfortable in the presence of others. It was in my language. It was in the language you gave me." 3.5 ⭐️ I enjoyed this. It was certainly different, it took me a while to get into and underst......more

Goodreads review by Peter

I'm sorry to say that I didn't get on with Everything Under. Like everyone else, I was delighted to hear that a 27-year-old writer had made the Booker shortlist with her debut novel - just the kind of shake-up that the prize needs. But even though I can acknowledge some of the ambition and invention......more

Goodreads review by Meike

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2018 This text is the reworking of a Greek tragedy (which one? (view spoiler)[ Oedipus Rex (hide spoiler)] ), a horror/ghost story, and a hall of mirrors - Daisy Johnson knows how to write exciting experimental fiction! As the novel progresses, the mythological source becomes clear, but she......more

Goodreads review by s.penkevich

The past was not a thread trailing behind us but an anchor. ‘Any decisions we make are only mirages,’ the narrator of Daisy Johnson’s first novel, Everything Under, is told by her mother, ‘ghosts to convince us of free will.’ Everything Under is a blissfully accomplished novel that follows the intert......more