Clear - by Nicola Barker (Paperback)

From the Back Cover

On September 5, 2003, illusionist David Blaine entered a small Perspex box adjacent to London's Thames River and began starving himself. Forty-four days later, on October 19, he left the box, fifty pounds lighter. That much, at least, is clear. And the rest? The crowds? The chaos? The hype? The rage? The fights? The lust? The filth? The bullshit? The hypocrisy?

Nicola Barker fearlessly crams all that and more into this ribald and outrageous peep show of a novel, her most irreverent, caustic, up-to-the-minute work yet, laying bare the heart of our contemporary world, a world of illusion, delusion, celebrity, and hunger.

Review Quotes

"An exasperating, beguiling, and occasionally damn-ner perfect piece of work [by an] infuratingly talented British author." - Kirkus Reviews on Behindlings
"Nicola Barker's is a singular world, a hectic place of uncommon characters and naughty, memorable prose.... Her style is fast, funny, profound, and sharp." - Newsday
"Barker's narrative draws us in with the disturbing, surreal touch of a latter-day Lewis Carroll." - Sunday Times (London)
"Dazzling...She celebrates the complexity of human experience." - London Times
"The plot doesn't just twist, it leaps and back-flips and does triple somersaults..." - New York Times Book Review
"Nicola Barker has a rare writing talent." - Time Out (London)
"Barker's weird imagination works wonders...Exceptional." - Elle
"The brilliance of Barker's style is beyond question." - The Spectator
"The diversity of Barker's imagination is stunning; her language, witty and exact." - Daily Telegraph (London)
"Barker's earthy, inventive, hilarious, and wickedly satirical novel is enormously entertaining." - Booklist
"Her vision is unique, funny, dark, sarcastic and clever." - Alain de Botton