description: 'I was absorbed and impressed by Jeremy Gavron's AN ACRE OF BARREN GROUND. It has an intriguing, mosaic-like structure and is so good that when you finish you have to go right back and read it again' Maggie O' Farell, THE OBSERVER‘This is the most original novel I've read for some years. It is a masterpiece of both research and imagination, and deserves to put Jeremy Gavron among the front rank of contemporary writers.‘The weaving of fiction and non-fiction, and the short story with the written and graphic novel, almost heralds the arrival of a new genre; historical contemporary graphic docu-fiction perhaps. Whatever you want to label it, it is a remarkable achievement, and quite unlike anything you will have read before.‘I thoroughly recommend it - for once a novel actually deserves the accolade ‘unique'.’Tim LottClever, witty, tender, droll - this remarkable book offers up quite the most extraordinary confection of delights that I have come across in years. Jeremy Gavron takes east London as his canvas and paints a portrait that is richly multi-layered and breath-takingly inventive.An Acre of Barren Ground is surely destined to endure as a classic.- Simon Winchester'Thought-provoking, engagingly written and occasionally rather extraordinary'Daily Telegraph 2/4'[Gavron's] daunting and completely extraordinary novel-come-social-history deftly excavates one single London street, the East End's Brick Lane, but in such depth and with such empathy and gusto that it leaves you breathless... I don't think I’ve ever read such a ventriloquism of diverse styles so dazzlingly and successfully combined in the course of a single novel'Julie Myerson, Guardian 2/4'Despite not liking Amis, Gavron admires many of his heroes, such as Saul Bellow and Phillip Roth. He quotes '"Reading a novel requires sustained concentration in the presence of an enigmatic thing." A lot of novels aren't written with the trust that readers will have that sustained concentration.' Fingers crossed that Gavron's readers repay his trust'Time Out 20/3'Gavron writes beautifully, and concisely, with a poet's economy of language. In a work of fiction embedded in fact, he shows his mastery of a muscular genre. What makes the work remarkable is the freedom with which the task is tackled [ . . . ] This should be required reading in the commercial ant-heap, the City of London, a reminder of the function as well as the evolution of a great city. For those of us who knew something of the East End in the post-war years, this book is unputdownable. For anyone interested in the art of storytelling, it is a book to be read in a single sitting'. JEWISH CHRONICLE 15/04'Fiction, history and archaelogy blend compellingly in this exploration of the lives of the inhabitants of London's Brick Lane' 100 Best Holiday Reads, SUNDAY TIMES 10/07'I plan to read Jeremy Gavron's AN ACRE OF BARREN GROUND. I loved [Gavron's] previous books and this one promises to be just as brilliant' Maggie O'Farrell, My Summer Holiday, INDEPENDENT 23/7'Fiction, history and arceology blend compellingly in this exploratoration of the lives of the inhabitants of London's Brick Lane' THE TIMES Summer Reading 10/07'astonishing . . . a virtuoso achievement, which tells us as much about human hopes and disappointments and even more about the nature of storytelling' PROSPECT 08/05
language: English
title: An Acre of Barren Ground
titlecomplete: An Acre of Barren Ground
genres: Fiction
ratings_count: 61
publisher: Simon & Schuster UK