With most of the novel extracts in the Granta anthology, I’ve been able to gain some sense of what the full novel may be like (which is not say my impressions are correct, but I have been able to form them). Not so Joanna Kavenna’s short piece ‘Tomorrow’, which has the potential to head off in a number of odd directions. We see its narrator collect the stuff she (along with several others) has been storing at a friend’s house; do her job at home, sending out customer service emails; talk to a friend about the subjective passage of time.
Now I read that back, it maybe doesn’t sound all that strange in summary. But it’s the tone of Kavenna’s writing that makes it feel so whilst one is reading it. I have a copy of the author’s most recent novel, Come to the Edge, on my shelves; and I’m thinking I ought to read it soon – because one thing I do sense clearly from ‘Tomorrow’ is that Kavenna may be my kind of writer.
This is part of a series of posts on Granta 123: Best of Young British Novelists 4. Click here to read the rest.
14th August 2013 at 5:16 pm
I read Joanna Kavenna’s novel Inglorious a few years ago and didn’t connect with it quite as much as I’d anticipated I might. Having said that, I’ve also got a copy of Come to the Edge and I do like the sound of it and look forward to trying it.