Everything Under

An electrifying debut novel from one of the most exciting new voices in contemporary fiction **SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2018** **A New York Times Notable Book 2018** 'Daisy Johnson is a new goddamn swaggering monster of fiction.' Lauren Groff Words are important to Gretel, always have been. As a child, she lived on a canal boat with her mother, and together they invented a language that was just their own. She hasn't seen her mother since the age of sixteen, though - almost a lifetime ago - and those memories have faded. Now Gretel works as a lexicographer, updating dictionary entries, which suits her solitary nature. A phone call from the hospital interrupts Gretel's isolation and throws up questions from long ago. She begins to remember the private vocabulary of her childhood. She remembers other things, too- the wild years spent on the river; the strange, lonely boy who came to stay on the boat one winter; and the creature in the water - a canal thief? - swimming upstream, getting ever closer. In the end there will be nothing for Gretel to do but go back. Daisy Johnson's debut novel turns classical myth on its head and takes readers to a modern-day England unfamiliar to most. As daring as it is moving, Everything Under is a story of family and identity, of fate, language, love and belonging that leaves you unsettled and unstrung.

About the Author :
Daisy Johnson was born in 1990. Her debut short-story collection, Fen, was published in 2016. In 2018 she became the youngest author ever to be shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize with her debut novel Everything Under. She is the winner of the Harper's Bazaar Short Story Prize, the A. M. Heath Prize and the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. She currently lives in Oxford by the river.

Review :
Daisy Johnson is a new goddamn swaggering monster of fiction Saturated in mythology and fairy tales, Everything Under is weird and wild and wonderfully unsettling. Daisy Johnson writes in a torrent of language as unrelenting and turbulent and dark as the river at the book’s heart; dive in for just a moment and you’ll emerge gasping and haunted The kind of book that worms its way into your brain, leaving echoes of its story and world long after it is back on the shelf… beautifully creepy and affecting A stunning debut novel. Blending a deep understanding of character and storytelling examination… the result reminds me of Iris Murdoch… Johnson’s affinity for the natural world is extraordinary Everything Under grabbed me from the first page and wouldn’t let me go. To read Daisy Johnson is to have that rare feeling of meeting an author you’ll read for the rest of your life. Everything Under is a force of nature ... Like Iris Murdoch's 1954 novel Under the Net, Johnson's Man Booker Prize finalist is concerned with language, secrets and the damage wrought by what's left unsaid. Imaginative and innovative... there is a spellbinding tension. As the threads move towards a common end, you’re a child who wants to know the magic. A formally ambitious novel with a thriller’s heart and intimate attention to the power of language. I’m under the spell of an extraordinary book… Everything Under [is] a gift from a wise and empathetic friend who understands the gypsy gift of storytelling – to transcend and enthral. A triumph: a novel that feels inexorable, messy and profound all at once.