Levitation for Beginners: 'Deliciously unsettling' Clare Chambers
Suzannah Dunn
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'This is a novel about everything and nothing, sour and melancholy, with elements of sheer comedy and almost unbearable beauty... The older Deborah reflects that "I'm surprised any of us lived to tell the tale", and if this subtle book has a message, it is how alien and yet how relatable the past remains' Guardian Book of the Day
'A glorious writer... witty, well-observed and full of heart' Irish Independent
'A bittersweet, nostalgia-tinged adventure... with a steadily growing voltage' Daily Mail
'A deliciously unsettling read' Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures 'Lovely' Patrick Gale A sharp eye and keen wit are brought to bear on the secrets and lies of a small rural community - secrets and lies that may prove deadly.
It's 1972 and ten-year-old Deborah is living a ten-year-old life: butterscotch angel delight and Raleigh chopper bikes, and Clunk Click, and Crackajack and Jackanory, Layla and the Bee Gees, flares and ponchos.
But new girl Sarah-Jayne breezes into school, pretty as a picture and full of gossip and speculation, as well as unlikely but thrilling stories about levitation. The other girls are dazzled but Deborah is wary and keeps her distance. That same week, eighteen-year-old brickie Sonny turns up on her doorstep with a stray tortoise and begins an unlikely friendship with her young widowed mum. That's bad enough, Deborah thinks, but then Sonny starts work on a site opposite the school and Sarah-Jayne decides he's the latest love of her life. Nothing escapes Sarah-Jayne, and Deborah fears what she'll make of her mum. It's good to be different, her mum often says; but not, Deborah knows, too different.
So, Deborah changes tactics, keeping her friends close and her enemy closer, even stepping up for some of Sarah-Jayne's levitation sessions. Then she's invited to Sarah-Jayne's lovely house, where she meets her charming family and encounters Sarah-Jayne's big sister's fiance, Max, which is when she senses that all isn't quite as it seems.
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Praise for Levitation for Beginners: 'Deliciously unsettling' Clare Chambers
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Levitation for Beginners transported me right back to my '70s schooldays. The clannishness and micro-cruelties of 10-year-old girls were brilliantly authentic. I especially liked the innuendo and half-grasped truths that filter down to Deborah from the adult world and the slowly building unease. I loved that nothing was over-explained; it all made for a deliciously unsettling read - Clare Chambers, bestselling author of Small PleasuresEven if your childhood wasn't overshadowed by David Cassidy and Spacehoppers, this evocation of the lethal gossip and antipathies of a provincial primary school shaken by the arrival of a pretty, confident girl who isn't all that she would seem, is sure to stir dark memories. Lovely - Patrick GaleA bittersweet, nostalgia-tinged adventure, saturated in contemporary pop culture, with a steadily growing voltage from slow-build jeopardy and regular jolts of irony in Deborah's hindered understanding of her life as a child - Daily MailOn the surface this is a quiet story about life in a small village in 1970s England (if you grew up in the 70s you'll be howling at the period details) but it's so much more than that... this novel is a masterclass in building quiet tension and atmosphere... A deceptively clever, unsettling and chilling read about the secrets and lies at the heart of a small community that feels incredibly, devastatingly true - Katherine Clements
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