We Pretty Pieces of Flesh

(Hardback)

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A searing debut novel written entirely in South Yorkshire dialect about three working-class girls whose friendship is torn apart by a devastating secret. A gut-punch novel of girlhood in early noughties Yorkshire from a blazing new voice 'Unforgettable...a wondrous, luminous novel' NANA KWAME ADJEI-BRENYAH 'Brilliant and original on every level... she is a writer like nobody else' ELIZABETH MCCRACKEN Ask anyone non-Northern, they'll only know Donny as punch line of a joke or place they changed trains once ont way to London. But Doncaster's also the home of Rach, Shaz and Kel, bezzies since childhood and Donny lasses through and through. They share everything, from blagging their way into nightclubs to pregnancy tests at Family Planning when they're late. Never mind that Rach is skeptical of Shaz's bolder plots; or that Shaz, who comes from a rougher end of town, feels left behind when the others begin charting a course to uni; or that Kel sometimes feels split in two trying to keep the peace - their friendship is as indestructible as they are. But as they grow up and away from one another, a long-festering secret threatens to rip the trio apart. Written in a South Yorkshire dialect that brings a place and its people magnificently to life, We Pretty Pieces of Flesh takes you by the hand and drags you through Doncaster's schoolyards, alleyways and nightclubs, laying bare the intimate treacheries of adolescence and the ways we betray ourselves when we don't trust our friends. Like The Glorious Heresies and Shuggie Bain, it tracks hard-edged lives and makes them sing, turning one overlooked place into the very centre of the world. 'A novel brimming with rough poetry, heart and mischief' FERDIA LENNON

Reviews

With this debut, Colwill Brown announces herself as unforgettable... a wondrous, luminous novel -- Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of Chain-Gang All-Stars
Colwill Brown is, simply, brilliant and original on every level... We Pretty Pieces of Flesh is astonishing, as hilarious and wrenching as life itself. Her characters and sentences knock around my brain still, moving, unsettling, indelible. She is a writer like nobody else -- Elizabeth McCracken, author of The Hero of This Book
Tender and raucous, Shaz, Kel, and Rachs friendship is brilliantly realized. We Pretty Pieces of Flesh is a novel brimming with rough poetry, heart, and mischief -- FERDIA LENNON, author of Glorious Exploits
A big, brave, beautiful scream of a book. It is haunting and hilarious and heartbreaking, so tender, so raw, so deeply felt, so full of insight and sympathy and, above all else, so exquisitely written. We Pretty Pieces of Flesh is a rare wonder of a book and Colwill Brown is a writer of astounding originality -- Edward Carey

Author Bio

Colwill Brown was born and raised in Doncaster, South Yorkshire. She holds an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin, where she received a James A. Michener Center Fellowship, and an MA in English literature from Boston College. Her work has appeared in Granta, Prairie Schooner and elsewhere. A proud Donny lass, she claims to have played bass guitar in (nearly) every rock venue on South Yorkshire's toilet circuit.