When I’m asked about “Milkman,” what usually comes first is a facial expression. It’s unconscious, I think, involving a fusion of shock and delight — a raising of the eyebrows, an open mouth, a slight grin — and holding for only a brief moment before I get to a synopsis of the book that ends with an aggressive recommendation. For good reason, too: Irish author Anna Burns’s 2018 novel is increasingly popular. The novel beat out other favorites for the 2018 Man Booker Prize and has soared in sales in recent months.
These accomplishments of Burns’s are rightfully harvested. “Milkman” is, quite simply, an arresting masterpiece. Telling the story of a young woman planted in late-twentieth-century Northern Ireland, “Milkman” is a chilling story that Burns uses — both outstandingly successfully and covertly — as a lens to apply to the world readers interact with in “Milkman.” With prose so reliably detailed and engrossing and an audacious, yet still intricate, cast of characters, it is no question the Booker Prize fell into commendable hands.
Our full review of “Milkman” can be found here.