Milkman (2018)
Who wrote it?
Anna Burns (1962- ; active 2001- ), born Belfast, Northern Ireland. She grew up in the working-class Catholic district of Ardoyne, during especially turbulent years of the Troubles. She has lived in England since 1987, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2021.
She began writing seriously in her mid-30s. Her debut novel No Bones (2001) drew on her childhood in Belfast, and was widely acclaimed, garnering an Orange (Women's) Prize nomination and winning the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize for regional fiction. She published a second novel, Little Constructions, in 2007 and a novella, Mostly Hero, in 2014, before returning to the Troubles for 2018's Milkman.
What's it about?
Milkman is told in the distinctive voice of an unnamed 18-year-old "middle sister" trying to go about her life in an unnamed city in peak-Troubles Northern Ireland. She is stalked and harrassed by a 41-year-old paramilitary officer known only as "Milkman". False rumours spread that she is in a relationship with this character, affecting her relationship with her mother, the wider community, and her "maybe-boyfriend".
In the course of the novel, which rarely names its characters or locations with anything other than nicknames and allusions, she is poisoned by a troubled character known as "tablets girl", threatened at gunpoint by another "amateur stalker" called Somebody McSomebody, and identified as "beyond the pale" by her "longest friend" for her habit of reading while walking.
What I liked
As has almost become par for the course in Booker winners of the 2010s, this is another novel almost entirely like any of the winners that came before it. It’s told in a unique, authentic-feeling voice, and the novel’s eschewing of names lends it a claustrophobic, fever-dream-like atmosphere that really feels unique.
As many have commented, this is a novel that’s both very clearly about the Troubles and also much more universal. The central protagonist’s wish to keep her head down in a (nineteeth century, obviously) book, attempting to avoid engaging with the deeply disturbing realities of the world around her, is broadly relatable, and more specifically the evident fear (both of physical attack and of perpetual judgement) as a woman feels extremely relevant far beyond its apparent setting.
It’s a dry, darkly humorous novel. Very darkly, perhaps. But the narrator’s habit of meeting the deeply entrenched absurdities of her world with a (sometimes accidental-seeming, sometimes very deliberate) withering wit is hard not to enjoy.
The lived experience of the realities this book describes are readily apparent. Where winners of the past have often felt mediated, detached, literary observations of the worlds they describe (however well they do so), this is one of the few where you really feel thrown into the thick of that world as experienced by someone who has truly lived it.
What I didn’t like
As I mentioned in my closing notes last time, I had given this one a go before, and packed it in after about 50 pages. I’m learning a lot about sticking with books as a result of this Booker marathon, but my past self can attest that it’s not a super-easy book to get into. Yes, it’s absolutely worth sticking with, but I can fully understand why some might find its (albeitly gently) experimental nature too much to be bothering with.
Perhaps more notably, while it is a great read once you’re into it, it’s not an especially comfortable one. The overriding emotional state I found myself in while reading this was one of anxiety. It’s an extremely unnerving novel, and it’s not just the subject matter that makes it so. The long, digressionary sentences that often loop back on themselves in a repetitive manner feel uncomfortably reminiscent of anxiety-induced spiraling thought patterns. While it’s an impressive feat to have replicated this kind of internal narrative in prose, it’s not always an enjoyable experience.
Food & drink pairings
Farleys Rusks. Chips (discarded). Flying saucers.
Fun facts
In the book's acknowledgements, Burns thanks the food banks and social services she used after completing the novel and while waiting to sell the novel, which was rejected several times. In this period she was struggling to make ends meet, with a back injury rendering her unable to work otherwise.
Burns was the first Northern Irish winner of the Prize. Milkman won plaudits beyond just the Booker, taking the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction in 2018 and subsequently the Orwell Prize for political writing, the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award.
Milkman was something of a surprise winner in 2018. Richard Powers seemed to be the favourite, perhaps with commentators anticipating a trilogy of US winners in consecutive years, and Esi Edugyan was also seen as a likely winner.
Among the other nominees, Daisy Johnson, at 27, set a new record for the youngest author to be shortlisted for the Prize.
Burns' favourite previous winner of the Prize is - perhaps unshockingly - J. G. Farrell's Troubles (which was only belatedly - and posthumously - awarded the 1970 Prize in the "Lost Booker" award to correct an omission caused by changing rules)
Milkman spun off from characters and fragments from a book she was trying to write which she referred to as her "real third novel" but struggled to complete. As yet this is still to emerge.
Vanquished Foes
Esi Edugyan (Washington Black)
Daisy Johnson (Everything Under)
Rachel Kushner (The Mars Room)
Richard Powers (The Overstory)
Robin Robertson (The Long Take)
I’m guessing most other readers will have tackled at least a few of these, now we’re coming very close to the present day. Any tips from this selection?
The Women's Prize was won by Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire. No direct Booker crossover but Milkman was shortlisted in 2019.
Context
In 2018:
Salisbury poisonings of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the UK
Chinese constitution change gives Xi Jinping "President for Life" status
Greta Thunberg, aged 15, begins her school strike in Sweden
Jair Bolsonaro elected President of Brazil
Yellow Vests protests in France
Protests in US against mass shootings, including National School Walkout and subsequent "March For Our Lives"
11 killed in Pittsburgh synagogue shooting in Pennsylvania
Kim Jong-Un becomes the first North Korean leader to cross into South Korea to meet President Moon Jae-in
In a busy year, he also meets Chinese president Xi Jinping and US President Trump
Murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi outside Saudi consulate in Istanbul
Separatist group ETA announces its dissolution after 40 years of conflict in Spain
Referendum on ban on abortion in Ireland sees 66% vote in favour of repeal
March for Second Brexit Referendum in London draws at least 700k attendees
Greece and Macedonia resolve 27-year naming dispute resulting in renaming of the latter as North Macedonia
Thai junior football team cave rescue gains worldwide attention
Longest government shutdown in US history begins in December as a result of dispute over funding for US-Mexico border wall
Jacob Zuma resigns as South African President after 9 years
Supreme Court of India decriminalizes homosexuality
Drone incident leads to massive disruption at Gatwick Airport near London
Fire at National Museum of Brazil destroys more than 90% of its archive
Wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in the UK
EU GDPR data privacy regulations come into effect
Canada legalises cannabis for recreational use
Cinemas open in Saudi Arabia for the first time since 1983
Amateur boxing match between influencers KSI and Logan Paul draws huge global audience
First non-stop flights between UK and Australia launched by Qantas
British rapper Stormzy launches his Merky Books imprint in London
Sally Rooney, Normal People
Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing
Michelle Obama, Becoming
Black Panther
If Beale Street Could Talk
Roma
Drake, Scorpion
Travis Scott, Astroworld
Arctic Monkeys, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino
David Byrne, American Utopia
Life Lessons
No matter how hard you might try, you can’t really “keep your head down”
Keep an eye on unattended drinks
Carrying a dead cat’s head around is probably not going to end well
Score
8
Original, thought-provoking and with a pleasingly dark sense of humour. A little too anxiety-inducing to be right up among my favourites but it’s an incredibly worthy winner.
Ranking to date:
Lincoln in the Bardo - George Saunders (2017) - 10
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro (1989) - 9.5
Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie (1981) - 9.5
Disgrace - J. M. Coetzee (1999) - 9.5
The Narrow Road to the Deep North - Richard Flanagan (2014) - 9.5
The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst (2004) - 9
Moon Tiger - Penelope Lively (1987) - 9
A Brief History of Seven Killings - Marlon James (2015) - 9
The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga (2008) - 9
Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth (1992) - 9
Oscar & Lucinda - Peter Carey (1988) - 9
The Sea, The Sea - Iris Murdoch (1978) - 9
Life & Times of Michael K. - J. M. Coetzee (1983) - 9
The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy (1997) - 9
Schindler’s Ark - Thomas Keneally (1982) - 9
The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai (2006) - 9
Life of Pi - Yann Martel (2002) - 8.5
Bring Up The Bodies - Hilary Mantel (2012) - 8.5
The Bone People - Keri Hulme (1985) - 8.5
How Late it Was, How Late - James Kelman (1994) - 8.5
Troubles - J.G. Farrell (1970, "Lost Booker") - 8.5
The Sense of an Ending - Julian Barnes (2011) - 8
The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood (2000) - 8
Possession - A. S. Byatt (1990) - 8
Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel (2009) - 8
Milkman - Anna Burns (2018) - 8
The Sellout - Paul Beatty (2016) - 8
Saville - David Storey (1976) - 8
The Luminaries - Eleanor Catton (2013) - 8
The Sea - John Banville (2005) - 8
The Siege of Krishnapur - J.G. Farrell (1973) - 8
Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre (2003) - 7.5
The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje (1992) - 7.5
The Finkler Question - Howard Jacobson (2010) - 7.5
Rites of Passage - William Golding (1980) - 7.5
The Gathering - Anne Enright (2007) - 7.5
True History of the Kelly Gang - Peter Carey (2001) - 7.5
Offshore - Penelope Fitzgerald (1979) - 7.5
Last Orders - Graham Swift (1996) - 7
The Elected Member - Bernice Rubens (1970) - 7
The Conservationist - Nadine Gordimer (1974) - 7
Holiday - Stanley Middleton (1974) - 7
Heat & Dust - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1975) - 6.5
In a Free State* - V.S. Naipaul (1971) - 6.5
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha - Roddy Doyle (1993) - 6
G. - John Berger (1972) - 6
The Famished Road - Ben Okri (1991) - 6
Something to Answer For - P. H. Newby (1969) - 5.5
The Ghost Road** - Pat Barker (1995) - 5.5
Staying On - Paul Scott (1977) - 5
Amsterdam - Ian McEwan (1998) - 5
Hotel du Lac - Anita Brookner (1984) - 4.5
The Old Devils - Kingsley Amis (1986) - 4
*Read in later condensed edition.
**Third part of a trilogy of which I hadn’t read pts 1&2
Next up
It’s the rather controversial 2019 Prize, which was - to the disapproval of many - shared between two winners. I’m going with Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other first…
