2021 Desmond Elliott Prize (nominee)
2021 Goldsmiths Prize (nominee)
"Extraordinary"--THE NEW YORKER
In the formally innovative tradition of Grief Is the Thing with Feathers and Ducks, Newburyport comes a dazzlingly original, shot-in-the-arm of a debut that reveals a young woman's every thought over the course of one deceptively ordinary day.
She wakes up, goes to work. Watches the clock and checks her phone. But underneath this monotony there's something else going on: something under her skin.
Relayed in interweaving columns that chart the feedback loop of memory, the senses, and modern distractions with wit and precision, our narrator becomes increasingly anxious as the day moves on: Is she overusing the heart emoji? Isn't drinking eight glasses of water a day supposed to fix everything? Why is the etiquette of the women's bathroom so fraught? How does she define rape? And why can't she stop scratching?
Fiercely moving and slyly profound, little scratch is a defiantly playful look at how our minds function in--and survive--the darkest moments.
Genre: Literary Fiction
In the formally innovative tradition of Grief Is the Thing with Feathers and Ducks, Newburyport comes a dazzlingly original, shot-in-the-arm of a debut that reveals a young woman's every thought over the course of one deceptively ordinary day.
She wakes up, goes to work. Watches the clock and checks her phone. But underneath this monotony there's something else going on: something under her skin.
Relayed in interweaving columns that chart the feedback loop of memory, the senses, and modern distractions with wit and precision, our narrator becomes increasingly anxious as the day moves on: Is she overusing the heart emoji? Isn't drinking eight glasses of water a day supposed to fix everything? Why is the etiquette of the women's bathroom so fraught? How does she define rape? And why can't she stop scratching?
Fiercely moving and slyly profound, little scratch is a defiantly playful look at how our minds function in--and survive--the darkest moments.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"Reads like the cinders settling in the air after an explosion... daring and completely readable." - Colin Barrett
"Confident and vital. . . little scratch is an absolute gift." - Naoise Dolan
"Rebecca Watson's little scratch voraciously captures our life... Watson uses language with a sniper's precision to target and capture the million little re-calibrations of the self that a young woman has to undertake in order to go from one day to the next. . . It is a story that is urgent. It is a story that needs to be told." - Meena Kandasamy
"I was immediately enveloped in the staccato of little scratch, which spun between wry, funny and heartbreaking. It captures beautifully a rhythm not just of trauma, but also of the small, defiant, everyday happinesses that push through and against it." - Sophie Mackintosh
"Witty, defiant, tender… what a book!" - Olivia Sudjic
"little scratch is a little miracle... impossible to read it and not wish there were more books like it." - Alan Trotter
"Confident and vital. . . little scratch is an absolute gift." - Naoise Dolan
"Rebecca Watson's little scratch voraciously captures our life... Watson uses language with a sniper's precision to target and capture the million little re-calibrations of the self that a young woman has to undertake in order to go from one day to the next. . . It is a story that is urgent. It is a story that needs to be told." - Meena Kandasamy
"I was immediately enveloped in the staccato of little scratch, which spun between wry, funny and heartbreaking. It captures beautifully a rhythm not just of trauma, but also of the small, defiant, everyday happinesses that push through and against it." - Sophie Mackintosh
"Witty, defiant, tender… what a book!" - Olivia Sudjic
"little scratch is a little miracle... impossible to read it and not wish there were more books like it." - Alan Trotter
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