Milkman: A Novel

"Anna Burns just won the Man Booker Prize for this novel, set in 1970s Northern Ireland, and it’s easy to see why. Take the first sentence: “The day Somebody McSomebody put a gun to my breast and called me a cat and threatened to shoot me was the same day the milkman died.” The book is interested in bigger questions than just: What happened to the milkman? Burns explores what happens when the divide between us and them becomes too wide to cross. She asks whether we believe women, and why. And she digs into these heavy, timely themes with humor and light. The young woman who narrates the story buries her head in books as she walks home each night. With a book like this in hand, I’d do the same."