Milkman by Anna Burns, won the Man Booker Prize in 2018 and is a very stylised novel set in an unnamed city sometime during The Troubles in Northern Ireland. The narrator is a young woman whose life is changed when Milkman, a senior figure from amongst the "renouncers" (her description of the IRA), starts to pay her particular attention. As much as she might try to ignore it, this unwanted attention affects where she goes, who she sees and what she does. And, for the first time within her community, she has become someone that others start to notice - which is the opposite of everything she has tried to achieve. She just wants to go below the radar - it's safest that way. No character names are used, for instance, our narrator is Middle Sister, and the young lad she has been seeing is Maybe Boyfriend. This style took a little getting used to, but once I did, I enjoyed it - and weirdly, it did help to place everybody, whereas sometimes, when there are a lot of characters in a book (which there are in Milkman), you can lose track of who is who. The titles indicate WHAT they are in relation to the narrator, not WHO they are, if that makes sense! The story intrigued me from the outset, with the influence of Milkman over Middle Sister increasing over time and veiled (and not so veiled) threats darkening the mood. However, around three quarters of the way through, it seemed to lose a little bit of impetus and my interest started to wane. I wanted to find out what was going to happen, but the denouement seemed to take forever ... and it's not a particularly long book. However, it could just be me and what was going on in my own life outside of the book! Both funny and heartbreaking, it does give you a flavour of what it was like to live in a place so divided and dangerous. Although if you didn't know anything about Northern Ireland and "The Troubles" then some elements may be lost on you. Overall, I would recommend this book, as the characters have stayed with me - which is always a good sign. I read the audio edition narrated by Brid Brennan, who did a sterling job.
My STAR rating: FOUR.
Length: 368 print pages.
Price I paid: £5.84.
Reading formats available: print; unabridged audio download; audio CD; ebook.
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