Five Miles From Outer Hope

An instant classic of teenage self-discovery by prize-winning Nicola Barker, an "anarchic and lovingly perverse writer" (Ali Smith) Summer, 1981. Medve, sixteen years old and six foot three in her crocheted stockings, is marooned in a semi-derelict hotel on a tiny island off the coast of Devon, England. There's nothing to do but paint novelty mugs, dream of literary murders, and despair of her gothically unprepossessing family--including Mo, her sex toy-inventing mother; Poodle, her shamefully flat-chested sister; and four-year-old Feely, who wants to grow up to be a bulimic. Until one day a ginger-headed stranger arrives . . . One of our most enjoyably unconventional contemporary writers, Nicola Barker, roots out the darkly surreal in a forgotten corner of the world. Five Miles from Outer Hope is a startling, luminous book, and Medve's voice speaks bluntly from the heart, with results that are original and poignant.