An unnamed young woman in an unnamed city during the Troubles is being stalked by a powerful paramilitary figure known as the Milkman. Everyone is watching. Nobody helps. Burns writes about political claustrophobia and the surveillance of women's bodies in a voice that is utterly, devastatingly original. The 2018 Booker winner.
Clean — political tension, not romance.
Skip if you dislike:
Moods: Claustrophobic Darkly Funny Experimental Intense
Tropes: Unnamed Narrator The Troubles Surveillance Resistance
Deliberate — mirrors the anonymity and surveillance of the Troubles.
The stream-of-consciousness style challenges and rewards — give it 50 pages.
Never named — universalized to make the claustrophobia transferable.