Armadillos (Paperback)

Description

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Shortlisted for the Amazon Rising Star Award

Longlisted for the Guardian Not the Booker prize 2016

'P.K. Lynch can tell a story deep as a wound… Read this one' -- Jeanette Winterson

Aggie is fifteen-year-old girl, a 'sub' from a 'sub' family, one of Texas' downtrodden. Her father and brother enact that 'sub'-ness on her, week in, week out. She has only the vaguest notion that there is something wrong with the abuse she endures and instead dreams of the outside world.

And then one day, Aggie walks out, and like the armadillos that flourish in Texas' barren landscape, she is a survivor...

In her escape, she gravitates to those who are just as maltreated as her. They offer Aggie the sense of family, albeit a thoroughly dysfunctional one, that she's been searching for. But when she gets embroiled in a crisis involving stolen money, Aggie soon realises there are some problems you can't run away from.

Lynch stuns in this dark debut tale chronicling the journey of a young girl’s escape from an abusive family who despite all odds manages to survive. With the sense of a modern American classic, Scottish writer Lynch brings us ‘Armadillos’, an absorbing tale with an explosive ending.

About the Author

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P. K. Lynch trained as an actor and her first professional job was playing Lizzie in the film of Irvine Welsh’s novel, Trainspotting. After having a baby, P. K. completed her first stage play, Promise. Her second play, King of the Gypsies, played at the Edinburgh fringe, and then toured. She then enrolled on the MLitt Creative Writing programme at Glasgow University where Armadillos was awarded the Sceptre Prize for Fiction.

Praise For…

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"In this sweeping narrative of multi faceted abuse, Armadillos, as the name suggests, has a tough, often shocking, carapace of violence and exploitation but at its core, through its complex and compelling characters, there is revealed a plangent melancholy and a warm beating heart." —Laura Marney, author, Nobody Loves a Ginger Baby

"Armadillos is a brilliant first novel: pacy and un-put-downable. Reminding me of Catcher in the Rye, I wouldn't be surprised if it met with similar acclaim. Aggie is younger than the privileged Holden. Her family are white trash. She's a victim of sexual abuse. But her story of escape, like his, is told in her own quirky, fierce, often poetic language. She brings alive a cast of vividly described characters. The story of a survivor – shocking, frightening, but also moving and bursting with life – it's a novel that deserves to win prizes." —Vicky Feaver, author, The Book of Blood

"On the rarest of occasions, we see a prose author who writes sentences with the precision of a poet. Lynch has that gift, constructing lines that make me salivate. And she's got so much more: a story that's funny and dangerous and acerbic. This is a debut that blazes like the Texas sky." —Joshua Mohr, author, All This Life

"Armadillos is a raw, uneasy and beautiful read. The young and quick-witted Aggie has quite a story to tell: from the brutal truths about the family who raised her to the clear survival instincts that kick in when she escapes and meets an equally harrowing world. The language of Lynch’s debut novel is at at ease with itself, very much like Aggie herself is at ease in this life she's chosen despite the dangerous situations she finds herself in. Lynch, through a vivid imagining and writing to match it, brings this young girl, the land, and people around her fully to life." —EK Reader

"Fabulous characters. Beautiful pacing. Magnificent plotting. Loved it. It's just blisteringly good. Easily my favourite read in the last year by a country mile." —Sandy Thompson