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Pretty Ugly
- Author
- Kirsty Gunn
- Narrator
- Kirsty Gunn
- Publisher
- Rough Trade Books
- Publish Date
- 4 August 2025
- Run Time
- 5 hours 57 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
- Genre
- Short stories
What to expect
Contradictions (both real and apparent), oppositions, enigmas, provocations, challenges——this is the kind of material that makes a life, and is the kind of material that, in fiction, one is never quite sure of. With Pretty Ugly, Kirsty Gunn reminds us again that she is a master of just such stuff, presenting ambiguity and complication as the essence of the storyteller's endeavour.
The sheer force of life that Gunn is able to load these stories up with is both testament to her unrivalled skill and an exercise in what she describes as 'reading and writing ugly', in order to pursue the deeper truths that lie at the heart of both the human imagination and human rationality.
So here we have all the strange and seemingly impossible dualities that make up real life——and pretty ugly it can be, as well as beautiful, hopeful, bleak, difficult, exhilarating. But never, ever dull.
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Details
- Author
- Kirsty Gunn
- Narrator
- Kirsty Gunn
- Duration
- 5 hours 57 minutes
- Release Date
- 4 August 2025
- ISBN
- 9781914236556
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Rough Trade Books
- Genre
- Short stories
Synopsis
Contradictions (both real and apparent), oppositions, enigmas, provocations, challenges——this is the kind of material that makes a life, and is the kind of material that, in fiction, one is never quite sure of. With Pretty Ugly, Kirsty Gunn reminds us again that she is a master of just such stuff, presenting ambiguity and complication as the essence of the storyteller's endeavour. The sheer force of life that Gunn is able to load these stories up with is both testament to her unrivalled skill and an exercise in what she describes as 'reading and writing ugly', in order to pursue the deeper truths that lie at the heart of both the human imagination and human rationality. So here we have all the strange and seemingly impossible dualities that make up real life——and pretty ugly it can be, as well as beautiful, hopeful, bleak, difficult, exhilarating. But never, ever dull.
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