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Thanks so much Helen. ❤️ I‘m excited for this one. You are very good X XX I see you say in your review, the writer is a poet and the writing beautiful. ❤️

The city used to be a mining city before it was closed down, and we follow 3 generations in the same family, and how they are living. We‘re also meeting the academics that come in to learn something and make a difference.

I‘ve no idea why this resonated so much with me- I‘m not from Barnsley, a gay man or a miner. I think it was the age old working class v expectations theme.
Absolutely beautiful writing, especially the mine sections (obvious the author is a poet) he is Professor of Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University- his students are lucky to have him.
A thought provoking read.

Set in a Yorkshire pit town, this short debut novel follows 3 generations of a mining family as they wrestle with their identities.

The author is a poet and you can really tell from the beautiful writing. The structure takes a while to get used to, with short passages from each man, plus reports from a group of academics who are doing an art project in the town, as well as parts of the story told through surveillance cameras. Some reviewers felt

#NetgalleyGroup

Thank you to #Netgalley and #Canongate publishers for access to an arc for review.

Within just 100 pages, McMillan paints a very rich and honest account of a family growing up around the miner's strike, in Thatcher's Britain. Alongside a developing relationship with Ryan, Simon floats between jobs, trying to leave his mark on the world as a drag queen.
Cont. ⬇