The Lesser Bohemians

"I had to look at this again yesterday, because although I have such a vivid recollection of the feeling of reading it, I couldn’t remember anything about it on a line level! I opened it and thought, ‘wow, so this is what it looks like.’ I guess because it’s so voice-led, you completely enter that head. It’s true consciousness. McBride’s really good at, like, skipping to the image of the association—the kind of narrative preamble, or narrative signposting, that writers often give she will skip, not because she’s trying to be cryptic, but because in real consciousness none of those things exist. You’ve instantly leapt to the next thought or sensation. It’s a love story between an 18-year-old girl who just moved from Ireland to London to attend drama school, and the older actor she meets in a pub. They slowly unveil their stories to each other, but both are hiding parts of themselves. Partly it’s about the unknowability of the other, but also the ability to learn so much through love. The lyricism of it is just something else. There’s such a music, such a lilt to it. There’s rhythm and movement to how you read it, any reader would get that. And that’s something incredible to establish. Experimental fiction both points forward and back. We often describe things as new, when they are speaking as part of a tradition. But there is a noticeable newness to this book, and it’s in the deftness of language and the immersion—you feel so entirely in this person’s head whilst also being so clearly told a story. The way she gets inside people’s bodies, and writes sex in such a brilliant, honest and felt way. I think that is genuinely new. And if sex is something that is more instinctive, relies more on sensation and the unifying of desire and the body, then yes, surely experimental fiction serves that best: like sex, it defies a linear, straightforward recounting. I actually prefer The Lesser Bohemians , although I’m not sure why. A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing is darker in some ways. But I found that the music of The Lesser Bohemians worked best for me. I mean, they’re both brilliant, but I felt that the emotion and music was more intense in this."