A gut-punch novel of girlhood in early noughties Yorkshire from a blazing new voice
'Blistering, brilliant, savage and smart' EIMEAR McBRIDE
'Unforgettable...a wondrous, luminous novel' NANA KWAME ADJEI-BRENYAH
'Brilliant and original on every level... she is a writer like nobody else' ELIZABETH McCRACKEN
Ask anyone non-Northern, they’ll only know Donny as punch line of a joke or place they changed trains once ont way to London.
But Doncaster’s also the home of Rach, Shaz and Kel, bezzies since childhood and Donny lasses through and through. They share everything, from blagging their way into nightclubs to trips to the Family Planning clinic when they are late. Never mind that Rach is skeptical of Shaz’s bolder plots; or that Shaz, who comes from a rougher end of town, feels left behind when the others begin charting a course to uni; or that Kel sometimes feels split in two trying to keep the peace — their friendship is as indestructible as they are. But as they grow up and away from one another, a long-festering secret threatens to rip the trio apart.
We Pretty Pieces of Flesh takes you by the hand and leads you through Doncaster’s schoolyards, alleyways and nightclubs, laying bare the intimate treacheries of adolescence and the ways we betray ourselves when we don’t trust our friends. Like The Glorious Heresies and Shuggie Bain, it tracks hard-edged lives and makes them sing, turning one overlooked place into the very centre of the world.
'A novel brimming with rough poetry, heart and mischief' FERDIA LENNON
Genre: Literary Fiction
'Blistering, brilliant, savage and smart' EIMEAR McBRIDE
'Unforgettable...a wondrous, luminous novel' NANA KWAME ADJEI-BRENYAH
'Brilliant and original on every level... she is a writer like nobody else' ELIZABETH McCRACKEN
Ask anyone non-Northern, they’ll only know Donny as punch line of a joke or place they changed trains once ont way to London.
But Doncaster’s also the home of Rach, Shaz and Kel, bezzies since childhood and Donny lasses through and through. They share everything, from blagging their way into nightclubs to trips to the Family Planning clinic when they are late. Never mind that Rach is skeptical of Shaz’s bolder plots; or that Shaz, who comes from a rougher end of town, feels left behind when the others begin charting a course to uni; or that Kel sometimes feels split in two trying to keep the peace — their friendship is as indestructible as they are. But as they grow up and away from one another, a long-festering secret threatens to rip the trio apart.
We Pretty Pieces of Flesh takes you by the hand and leads you through Doncaster’s schoolyards, alleyways and nightclubs, laying bare the intimate treacheries of adolescence and the ways we betray ourselves when we don’t trust our friends. Like The Glorious Heresies and Shuggie Bain, it tracks hard-edged lives and makes them sing, turning one overlooked place into the very centre of the world.
'A novel brimming with rough poetry, heart and mischief' FERDIA LENNON
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"With this debut, Colwill Brown announces herself as unforgettable. The music and precision of her language, the fun and fervor of her characters, all of these things make We Pretty Pieces of Flesh a wondrous, luminous novel." - Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
"A big, brave, beautiful scream of a book. It is haunting and hilarious and heartbreaking, so tender, so raw, so deeply felt, so full of insight and sympathy and, above all else, so exquisitely written. We Pretty Pieces of Flesh is a rare wonder of a book and Colwill Brown is a writer of astounding originality." - Edward Carey
"Tender and raucous, Shaz, Kel and Rach's friendship is brilliantly realized. We Pretty Pieces of Flesh is a novel brimming with rough poetry, heart and mischief." - Ferdia Lennon
"Following Kel, Shaz and Rach's lives from childhood to adulthood is a bit like watching King Lear being acted out every day. The stakes are so high, the passions so deep, the triumphs so vivid but happily, in the face of many missed buses and betrayals, they have each other and another voddie and kebab. We Pretty Pieces of Flesh is one of the most remarkable portraits I've ever read of friendship." - Margot Livesey
"Colwill Brown is, simply, brilliant and original on every level; I haven't read a first book that floored me so thoroughly since Eimear McBride's A Girl is a Half-formed Thing. We Pretty Pieces of Flesh is astonishing, as hilarious and wrenching as life itself. Her characters and sentences knock around my brain still, moving, unsettling, indelible. She is a writer like nobody else." - Elizabeth McCracken
"A big, brave, beautiful scream of a book. It is haunting and hilarious and heartbreaking, so tender, so raw, so deeply felt, so full of insight and sympathy and, above all else, so exquisitely written. We Pretty Pieces of Flesh is a rare wonder of a book and Colwill Brown is a writer of astounding originality." - Edward Carey
"Tender and raucous, Shaz, Kel and Rach's friendship is brilliantly realized. We Pretty Pieces of Flesh is a novel brimming with rough poetry, heart and mischief." - Ferdia Lennon
"Following Kel, Shaz and Rach's lives from childhood to adulthood is a bit like watching King Lear being acted out every day. The stakes are so high, the passions so deep, the triumphs so vivid but happily, in the face of many missed buses and betrayals, they have each other and another voddie and kebab. We Pretty Pieces of Flesh is one of the most remarkable portraits I've ever read of friendship." - Margot Livesey
"Colwill Brown is, simply, brilliant and original on every level; I haven't read a first book that floored me so thoroughly since Eimear McBride's A Girl is a Half-formed Thing. We Pretty Pieces of Flesh is astonishing, as hilarious and wrenching as life itself. Her characters and sentences knock around my brain still, moving, unsettling, indelible. She is a writer like nobody else." - Elizabeth McCracken
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