Sam Byers Knihy

LONGLISTED FOR THE RSL ONDAATJE PRIZE 2019In Edmundsbury, a small town in eastern England, fear and loathing are on the rise. Brexit has happened and the ramifications are real. Grass-roots, right-wing political party 'England Always' is fomenting hatred. The residents of a failing housing estate are being cleared from their homes. A multinational tech company is making inroads into the infrastructure. A controversial tweet; a series of ill-judged think pieces; a riot of opinions - suddenly Edmundsbury is no longer the peaceful town it had always imagined itself to be.

a blistering critique of 21st century life.' Financial Times'Byers's mastery of tone and attentiveness to every psychological shift confirms him as one of the most accomplished novelists of his generation.' Sunday Times

A debut novel of love, narcissism, and ailing cattle Idiopathy (ɪdɪˈɒpəθi): a disease or condition which arises spontaneously or for which the cause is unknown. Idiopathy : a novel as unexpected as its title, in which Katherine, Daniel, and Nathan—three characters you won’t forget in a hurry—unsuccessfully try to figure out how they feel about one another and how they might best live their lives in a world gone mad. Featuring a mysterious cattle epidemic, a humiliating stint in rehab, an unwanted pregnancy, a mom–turned–media personality (“Mother Courage”), and a workplace with a bio-dome housing a perfectly engineered cornfield, it is at once a scathing satire and a moving meditation on love and loneliness. With unusual verbal finesse and great humor, Sam Byers neatly skewers the tangled relationships and unhinged narcissism of a self-obsessed generation in a remarkable, uproarious first novel.