Ducks, Newburyport - Couverture souple

"Extraordinary... astounding... amazing... one of the outstanding books of the century, so far." --The Irish Times

"In her latest novel, Lucy Ellmann doesn't just carry on as before: she doubles up, doubles down, and absolutely goes for broke. (...) Success? Failure? A triumph." -- The Guardian

"Resplendent in ambition, humour, and humanity. (...) In Ducks, Newburyport, Ellmann has created a wisecracking Mrs Dalloway for the internet age." -- The Financial Times

"A novel that rewards perseverance, is truly unique, and feels like an absence in your life when you finish it." -- The Observer

"Forbidding and magnificent... Ellmann has produced a domestic epic of modern American life in the Trump era." -- Prospect

"Astonishing. (...) A Molly Bloom for middle America." -- BBC Front Row

"Full of wit and intelligence... and one of the most intriguing, charming and genuinely funny characters I have come across in recent years." -- The Herald

"Is it any good? Oh my word yes. Reading it at this point in time feels like an act of human solidarity, a commitment to a world of truth and reason." -- The Literary Review

"A bravura feat: a stream of consciousness, a transcript of the world under modern conditions, and (as a consequence of Ellmann's fierce and succinct wit) very funny." -- The Scottish Review of Books

"Timely, fresh... and possibly one of the most important books of the decade." -- The LA Review of Books

"An impressive feat... Ellmann's 1024 pages put her male contemporaries in the shade." -- The Sunday Times

"Ulysses has nothing on this." -- Cosmopolitan

"A huge achievement." -- The Times Literary Supplement

"Hilarious, gigantic, jaw-breakingly delicious... Ducks, Newburyport contains multitudes. This is the book of the year and of the first couple of decades of the twenty-first century." -- Bookmunch

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2019

OBSERVER FICTION PICKS 2019 | THE HERALD FICTION PICKS 2019 | THE IRISH TIMES FICTION PICKS 2019 | SCOTTISH REVIEW OF BOOKS FICTION PICKS 2019 | COSMOPOLITAN FICTION PICKS 2019

Latticing one cherry pie after another, an Ohio housewife tries to bridge the gaps between reality and the torrent of meaningless info that is the United States of America. She worries about her children, her dead parents, African elephants, the bedroom rituals of 'happy couples', Weapons of Mass Destruction, and how to hatch an abandoned wood pigeon egg. Is there some trick to surviving survivalists? School shootings? Medical debts? Franks 'n' beans? A scorching indictment of America's barbarity, past and present, and a lament for the way we are sleepwalking into environmental disaster, Ducks, Newburyport is a heresy, a wonder - and a revolution in the novel.

"Ulysses has got nothing on this." -- Cosmopolitan