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- Herausgeber: Daunt Books
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
With its ruthless concision and artful mysteries, Kathryn Scanlan's Kick the Latch is lightning in a bottle.Based on transcribed interviews with Sonia, a horse trainer, the novel vividly captures thearc of one woman's life at the racetrack – the flat land and ramshackle backstretch; the bad feelings and friction; the winner's circle and the racetrack bar; the fancy suits and fancy boots; and the 'particular language' of 'grooms, jockeys, trainers, racing secretaries, stewards, pony people, hotwalkers, everybody' – with economy and integrity.As Scanlan puts it, 'I wanted to preserve – amplify, exaggerate – Sonia's idiosyncratic speech, her bluntness, her flair as a storyteller. I arrived at what you could call a composite portrait of a self.'Whittled down with a fiercely singular artistry, Kick the Latch bangs out of the starting gate and carries the reader on a careening joyride around the inside track.'A revelation in its unadorned, unromantic, plain power.' Andrew McMillan'It's a landscape full of exhausting labor and habitual violence, but also ecstatic devotion and joy . . . Scanlan writes about ordinary life in extraordinary ways.' Leslie Jamison, New Yorker'I was absolutely blown away . . . A finely wrought work of art that takes one person's life and expands it to create something wondrous and universal. The pages I read seemed to capture all that is vital to human existence.' Tash Aw'Kick the Latch comes at you fast, and is a hell of a ride. I loved it.' Jon McGregor'Pure exhilaration. No one works with fineness, with exactitude, with the beating heart of fiction and of life, quite like Kathryn Scanlan.' Amina Cain'Superb . . . Niche and precise in the revelation of an ordinary life (Johnson's Train Dreams, or Seethaler's A Whole Life) with the distillation of Lydia Davis.' Sinéad Gleeson'Revelatory . . . every word is essential.' Amy Hempel'A wonderfully empathic window opened onto a fascinating life lived on the margins.' Eric Banks'Performs the trick of turning a life . . . into art, and does so with particular charm, will, and intensity.' Lucie Elven
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‘Utterly fresh, shimmery as a dragonfly … Ridiculously good.’ Kerri ní Dochartaigh
‘Kick the Latch performs the trick of turning a life, with its practicalities and speed, into art, and does so with particular charm, will, and intensity.’ Lucie Elven
‘A revelation in its unadorned, unromantic, plain power.’ Andrew McMillan
‘I was absolutely blown away … It’s so much more than a skilled act of ventriloquism, it is a finely-wrought work of art that takes one person’s life and expands it to create something wondrous and universal. The pages I read seemed to capture all that is vital to human existence.’ Tash Aw
‘Kick the Latch is pure exhilaration. No one works with fineness, with exactitude, with the beating heart of fiction and of life, quite like Kathryn Scanlan.’ Amina Cain
‘Kathryn Scanlan has performed a magical act of empathic ventriloquy in Kick the Latch. This immediate, engrossing immersion in another life and world, so personally and passionately told, is compulsively readable.’ Lydia Davis
‘I have been following Kathryn Scanlan’s original voice for years. In her new venture—an unusually intimate, clear-eyed portrait of a tough and engaging woman conveyed in revelatory vignettes—every word is essential.’ Amy Hempel
‘As fascinating and formally inventive as we have come to expect.’ LitHub
‘It’s a landscape full of exhausting labor and habitual violence, but also ecstatic devotion and joy … Scanlan writes about ordinary life in extraordinary ways by compacting it radically, like pressurizing carbon into diamonds.’ Leslie Jamison
‘Superb, episodic story of horse-racing, told in vignettes of violence, poverty and community. Both niche and precise in the revelation of an ordinary life (Johnson’s Train Dreams, or Seethaler’s A Whole Life) with Lydia Davis’ distillation.’ Sinéad Gleeson
‘Kick the Latch is an extraordinary act of portraiture. Tender, kind, and told with measured honesty, it gripped me entirely from the first page to the last.’ Jessie Greengrass
‘With this book, Kathryn Scanlan is telling us three things: life is short, it’s worth paying attention, and she’s one hell of a writer.’ Jon McGregor
‘The author—Kathryn Scanlan—wields a mean stiletto for a crop … A wonderfully empathic window opened onto a fascinating life lived on the margins.’ 4columns
‘This book is my new best friend. The craft and the beauty of it are a joy and an inspiration.’ Ben Pester
KICK THE LATCH
Kathryn Scanlan
To Sonia
Contents
1
SOLID PLASTER
I was born October 1st, 1962. I was born in Dixon City, Iowa. I was born with a dislocated hip. The doctor said I’d never walk. My mom said, Oh no, there’s got to be something. So they put me in solid plaster from my chest down, with just a little spot for my mom to put a diaper. I was in there five months. Then I went to two casts on my legs with a bar in between with these special shoes. Ended up I could walk. I attribute that to Dr. Johnson. My mom always said, Well, if it wasn’t for Dr. Johnson.
THE OLD MAN
We lived in a poor part of town but we had the greatest entertainment. We had the goldfish ponds, we had Motorcycle Hill, we had the dump and Bicycle Jenny. We made rafts for the creek. We lived off the land.
Down the street was a family who’d moved off the reservation—grandfather and kids and grandkids. The grandkids were our age and we spent a lot of time with them. The grandfather liked to tell me about his religion, his beliefs. I loved his stories and his tales. I called him Grandpa.
The old man—he was very well loved but he liked to drink. His daughter and her husband locked him out of the house when he got drunk. I’d say, Grandpa can stay with us—I’ll sleep in my sister’s room so Grandpa can have mine. So the old man would stay in my room and he’d go home when he sobered up.
His daughter and her husband didn’t like Grandpa to drink but they drank, too. They’d drink and get into fights and their kids would come over and we’d call the police. We’d watch out the bedroom window when the police came and hauled them off in handcuffs. The husband was carted away on a stretcher once for stab wounds.
IT WASN’T HIS FAULT
When I was six we got a big dog, but the dog kept wrapping his legs around me and taking my pants off in the front yard. It wasn’t his fault—he wasn’t fixed and I was the right height.
A week later my mom sent the dog back to the man who gave it to us. I cried like crazy when I came home and the dog was gone.
Then my uncle knew a man getting rid of a Shetland pony, but it was a stallion. Uncle borrowed a trailer anyway and brought the stallion pony to our house. We lived in a cheap rental with a rickety little white picket fence. We tied the pony to a concrete block in the front yard where there was plenty of grass to eat.
One day some girls rode by on their mares and the stallion pony started hollering his mating demand. I grabbed his halter but he kicked me against the side of the house. My mom picked up the concrete block to stop him but instead she went skidding down the road behind him—asphalt skiing. Finally a driver pulled over to help and they dragged the pony home together. My mom was scraped and bumped and black and blue all over.
The pony went away right after that.
