We Pretty Pieces of Flesh

Shortlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize “This lacerating, exhilarating debut novel . . . manages to be both boisterous and bleak, life-enhancing and life-denying, familiar and yet wholly original. It feels essential. You will probably read nothing else like it this year.” —The Guardian “A brilliant portrait of female friendship, nearly the equal in honesty and subtlety to Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) An exuberant and ribald debut novel about three adolescent girls, as sweetly vulnerable as they are cunning and tough, coming of age in a gritty postindustrial town in nineties Yorkshire, England “Ask anyone non-Northern, they’ll only know Donny as punchline of a joke or place they changed trains once ont way to London.” But Doncaster’s also the home of Rach, Shaz, and Kel, bezzies since childhood and Donny lasses through and through. Never mind that Rach is skeptical of Shaz’s bolder plots; or that Shaz, who comes from a rougher end of town, feels left behind when the others begin plotting a course to uni; or that Kel sometimes feels split in two trying to keep the peace—the girls are inseparable, their friendship as indestructible as they are. But as they grow up and away from one another, a long-festering secret threatens to rip the trio apart. Written in a Yorkshire dialect that brings a place and its people magnificently to life, Colwill Brown’s debut novel spans decades as its heroines come of age, never shying from the ugly truths of girlhood. Like Trainspotting and Shuggie Bain, We Pretty Pieces of Flesh tracks hard-edged lives and makes them sing, turning one overlooked and forgotten town into the very center of the world.
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A gut-punch novel of girlhood in early noughties Yorkshire from a blazing new voice 'It feels essential. You will read nothing else like it this year' GUARDIAN Ask anyone non-Northern, they’ll only know Donny as punch line of a joke or place they changed trains once ont way to London. But Doncaster’s also the home of Rach, Shaz and Kel, bezzies since childhood and Donny lasses through and through. They share everything, from blagging their way into nightclubs to trips to the Family Planning clinic when they are late. Never mind that Rach is skeptical of Shaz’s bolder plots; or that Shaz, who comes from a rougher end of town, feels left behind when the others begin charting a course to uni; or that Kel sometimes feels split in two trying to keep the peace — their friendship is as indestructible as they are. But as they grow up and away from one another, a long-festering secret threatens to rip the trio apart. We Pretty Pieces of Flesh takes you by the hand and leads you through Doncaster’s schoolyards, alleyways and nightclubs, laying bare the intimate treacheries of adolescence and the ways we betray ourselves when we don’t trust our friends. Like The Glorious Heresies and Shuggie Bain, it tracks hard-edged lives and makes them sing, turning one overlooked place into the very centre of the world. 'A novel brimming with rough poetry, heart and mischief' FERDIA LENNON 'Blistering, brilliant, savage and smart' EIMEAR McBRIDE 'Unforgettable...a wondrous, luminous novel' NANA KWAME ADJEI-BRENYAH 'Brilliant and original on every level... she is a writer like nobody else' ELIZABETH McCRACKEN