H(a)ppy

No book Nicola Barker writes is remotely like a book by anyone else, which is one of the many reasons to celebrate her . Also, no two books by Nicola Barker are doing remotely the same thing, which is another. So you never quite know what you're in for. And H(A)PPY , even by her own extravagant standards, is very strange indeed ... Barker has always been a visionary writer - visionary in style, with past and present interpenetrating in dream and hallucination . But her interest in religious visions and theology here comes to the fore ... As I say, Barker is not remotely like any other writer. With its typographical jiggering about (words really do change colour, and some pages have blocks of identical text or no text at all), and its favouring of symbols and ideas over characters, setting and story, it's more like a poem or artwork than a novel. Still, it's quite something . I'm just not sure what. Sam Leith Literary Review