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| First time American novelist Patricia Lockwood made the Booker Prize shortlist with No One is Talking About This |
Book Review
No One is Talking About This (2021)
by Patricia Lockwood
Congratulations to all the Booker Prize short-list nominees! I feel like making the short-list is huge for most authors- almost as good as wining, whereas making the longlist is only a so-so experience, heavy readers like me are way more likely to take your book for a spin, but a longlist nomination doesn't do much for the general Audience, like in the United States, straight up nobody gives a fuck about the longlist titles. I was surprised to see No One is Talking About This made the shortlist- one of three American books next to the forthcoming Bewilderment by Richard Powers (which also made the National Book Award longlist- announced today) and Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead- another surprise to me.
I had been hearing about No One is Talking About This here and there for months, basically in headlines that announced it as "The Great Internet Novel" or questioning that idea. Knowing that I was going to read it eventually, I skipped the debate. The truth that No One is Talking About This is half internet novel, half novel about a difficult childbirth, I think the two portions are literally split in two as in "Part One" and "Part Two."
I didn't love the plot- it seemed pretty maudlin to me, which I think is probably the point- moving beyond the internet and cynicism to find real meaning in the horrors of everyday life, but as a criminal defense attorney who spends most of his time defending indigent defendants from the vagaries of the Federal criminal justice system, I am well acquainted with the emotions Lockwood describes. I just can't imagine this is going to win the Booker Prize, but the shortlist is huge, and it really sets up her next book.
Also, the Audiobook is great, narrator Kristin Sieh really nails a narrator who could be hyper annoying in Audio form, but is not.
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