Nobber

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LONGLISTED FOR THE DESMOND ELLIOTT PRIZE

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOLLINGER EVERYMAN WODEHOUSE PRIZE
An ambitious noble and his three serving men travel through the Irish countryside in the stifling summer of 1348, using the advantage of the plague which has collapsed society to buy up large swathes of property and land. They come upon Nobber, a tiny town, whose only living habitants seem to be an egotistical bureaucrat, his volatile wife, a naked blacksmith, and a beautiful Gaelic hostage. Meanwhile, a band of marauding Gaels are roaming around, using the confusion of the sickness to pillage and reclaim lands that once belonged to them.

As these groups converge upon the town, the habitants, who up until this point have been under strict curfew, begin to stir from their dwellings, demanding answers from the intruders. A deadly stand-off emerges from which no one will escape unscathed.

'A dark and bloody tale, well leavened with bone-dry humour, and with a dramatic climax that has about it the flavour of a Jacobean tragedy' Guardian

'A writer out to do whatever the hell he wants . . . a grisly, gross-out slice of medieval life and death, it's vigorously, writhingly itself, spilling out of any box you put it in' Observer

'Nobber is hallucinatory and sly, conjuring a densely strange and savagely captivating world. There are lots of novels, and there are lots of novels that are all much alike, but there is nothing like Nobber' Colin Barrett

'A skilled storyteller with a rich command of language and rare comedic flair' Irish Times

(P)2020 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Critics Review

Plague-ridden, trippy and violent, it's uniquely told and full of startling images
Observer, Books of the Year
The wildest novel I read all year was easily Nobber, an eye-poppingly anarchic tale of greed and gore in a medieval Irish village struck by the Black Death
Daily Mail, Books of the Year
A tremendously engaging and fun read . . . a crazed, quixotic odyssey
Kevin Barry
Nobber is hallucinatory and sly, conjuring a densely strange and savagely captivating world. There are lots of novels, and there are lots of novels that are all much alike, but there is nothing like Nobber
Colin Barrett
Amid a strange, dark tale come glimpses of a striking new talent
The Times
Pestilence, the Black Death and comedy combine to bemusing and occasionally potent effect in this debut novel from the rising star of Oisin Fagan . . . Nobber is a lively and mischievous work that does a wonderful job of painting pictures for us of abject horror and suffering right before turning them over on to their backs to reveal soft comedic underbellies
Irish Independent
Utterly original, yet reminiscent of Flann O'Brien or Eimar O'Duffy. Nobber is the work of a fierce imagination and an even fiercer pen
Meath Chronicle
A writer out to do whatever the hell he wants . . . a grisly, gross-out slice of medieval life and death, it's vigorously, writhingly itself, spilling out of any box you put it in
Observer
All tremendously good fun: if noir whimsy and highfalutin' bawdiness are your thing, you will find a chortle-worthy moment on every couple of pages . . . Fagan is a skilled storyteller with a rich command of language and rare comedic flair
Irish Times
A bloody and brilliant first novel . . . a dark and bloody tale, well leavened with bone-dry humour, and with a dramatic climax that has about it the flavour of a Jacobean tragedy
Guardian, Book of the Day
Fagan's gleefully ornate prose is full of sly jokes and infused with humour that is less black than acid-bright . . . enough energy, absurdist wit and genuine strangeness to carry the reader through until the end of this ambitious, inventive novel
Sunday Times Ireland
Oisin is a true original. Nobber is brilliant, innovative, relevant, zany, and highly readable
Irish Examiner
[This] surreal, plague-ridden tale is set to become an Irish cult classic
Sunday Business Post
Fagan imbues the book with a hallucinatory shimmer, an almost overpowering medieval viscerality beginning at the edge of madness and gleefully pushed ever further. It's a wild ride
Herald
Nobber may well be one of the most original and entertaining Irish novels since The Butcher Boy
Dublin Review of Books

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