Product Description

'His language - which seems to crackle with electricity - conjures up a darkening sense of unease.'

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #53019 in Books
• Published on: 2009-06-05
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Review
'an edgy coming-of-age story told in vivid demotic prose.'
--Metro

'This debut is a brilliant evocation of a particular time and place from a new author who deserves a wide readership.' --WBQ

Review
'A crucial new voice.'

Review
'A fierce cry of talent...Polley's language is mercurial, his humour quick and surprising. A moving and unmissable debut.'

Customer Reviews

Gritty, real and convincing
Oh boy, this is good, really good. I love these stories, writing in local language, first person, coming of age stories.

What marks Polley out from other writers is his use of visualism, he was a poet before tackling straight prose and he throws some crazy shapes, your synapses crackle with the descriptors. He does it well, the narrator is a 14 year old boy and never do the clever visualisations sound forced or unconvincing.

The plot throws in the attendant violence, unrequitted passion and claustrophobic fear that teenagers encounter.

This really is a cracking read, the bulk of the story takes place over the course over a couple of days as the narrator and a (girl)friend try to track down a missing friend . The find him but there is a cracking twist when they do.

A really, really good read that deserves a wide audience.

What a relief, this is an antidote to grim northern misery pseudo-memoirs
This is a fabulous book - you do not need to be Cumbrian to understand it. If readers are having problems, try reading a few pages out loud, it is phonetic - so if you can read English (or Scots or American or any of the other "dialects" we all cope with and enjoy for their richness of language) or indeed if you watch any TV drama or film set north of Watford, it shouldn't be a problem. It isn't really dialect, more phonetic presentation of a regional accent. If you give up you will be missing a real treat. It is a good story and the real bonus for me was the way the author gets inside the head of his characters and the close observation of the world as they experience it. The language is tight but things are described with a poets attention to detail, but it still feels as if it is the thoughts of a 14 year old boy. Made me wonder if Frank Cottrell Boyce/Danny Boyle (Millions) would snap up the film rights. Oh and it is a cracking good yarn, funny and exciting and kept me reading to the end, unlike so many lauded first novels by far lesser writers. Don't be put off by the small world reviewers - give it a go!

An accessible masterpiece
Jacob Polley is one of the best writers I have read for years. Talk Of The Town might be described as a piece of masterful existentialism, or perhaps an English Catcher In The Rye, or a 21st Century Kes, but all that matters for now is that it is a hugely enjoyable story written in such an engaging style that the reader barely notices how beautifully poetic it is.

True, I was worried when I started reading. There are few apostrophes and no speech marks, and the entire piece is written in the dialect of Carlisle, such as: "Yer hear about plenty of stuff gan on, don't yer, but how d'yer know it really gans on if yer haven't seen the spot fer yersel if yer can?" Can you manage 275 pages of that if, like me, you were born in Surrey?

Yes, you can. Unlike Amit Chaudhuri's The Immortals, which uses Indian dialect to intimidate the reader, Polley uses dialect to root the story firmly where it belongs: right in the head of his 14-year old hero Chris. (If the dialect bothers you, then read it quickly, skimming over the prose and letting it soak into you. Trust me, it works.)

The reader only sees, hears and feels what Chris feels. As Chris probes the grimy underbelly of Carlisle trying to find out why his mate Arthur has disappeared, he encounters an array of fascinating and lifelike characters in a slightly unreal world: the world as seen by an adolescent who barely understands it.

Polley uses imagery so easily and naturally that the reader slips into Chris's psyche without effort; his use of imagery is so efficient and effective at doing the job that one almost fails to notice just how beautiful it is.