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Quinn: 'Hypnotically beautiful' - Mark Haddon

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* A Scotsman 'Best Book of 2023' *

From an award-winning Scottish poet, an unforgettable novel about memory and radical forgiveness

How far would you go to overcome the limits of your own forgiveness?

Quinn is serving a life sentence for a crime he's convinced he hasn't committed. Surely the authorities have got it wrong, and when they find his childhood sweetheart, Andrea, his name will be cleared. His parole date is drawing near when he receives an unexpected letter from Andrea's mother, who invites Quinn to share her home. 

It soon becomes clear that what appears to be a genuine act of forgiveness is influenced by more complex motivations. As the duo navigate the thorny terrain of guilt, justice and mutual need that underpins their relationship, the story of Quinn's past is gradually revealed, setting in motion a final reckoning. 

Em Strang's first novel is a hypnotic rendering of an unravelling mind and a visceral story about the very limits of forgiveness.

 

Review

'Quite remarkable... Strang is an exceptionally accomplished writer.' The Scotsman



'Eerie and moving... Quinn is a haunting fable about redemption, rendered in otherworldly, poetic prose.' FT



'A fascinating fever dream of a book... What a novelistic debut from Em Strang.' AL Kennedy, author of We Are Attempting to Survive Our Time



'Arresting… [with] a Max Porter-like intensity.' Daily Mail



'Hypnotically beautiful... It has the rare quality of being precise and gripping while at the same time leaving you radically uncertain as to what has actually happened.' Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime



'Reads like a fever dream... Delicate and touching... This devastating story [is] one of redemption too.' New Statesman



'Quinn teems with poetic effects... Apiece of writing that subverts the novel’s traditional narrative techniques – plot, dialogue, character development – and replaces them instead with the allusive and symbolic devices of an extended prose poem.' TLS



'I read it at a sitting, compelled by this strange and beautiful work... An astonishing feat of imagination.' Gwen Adshead, author of The Devil You Know



'Em Strang's is a true voice, and Quinn is that rarity, an original work of fiction, which excavates trauma and memory and refuses the frameworks placed on it. This book is its own landscape. Strange and powerful.' Paul Kingsnorth, author of The Wake, winner of the Gordon Burn Prize



'Such graceful prose with not a wasted breath; such grounded sharing from the magma of experience.' Alastair McIntosh, author of Soil and Soul



'A beautifully constructed and mesmerizing book that makes you think afresh about the enduring residue of pain both for those who have committed acts of violence and those affected by them. A brave and original attempt to answer our culture of dehumanization with a story that rehumanizes at every level.' Marina Cantacuzino, author of The Forgiveness Project



'That Em Strang is a poet comes as no surprise. She packs the text with natural imagery and quirky linguistic choices… The novel is compelling and original.' Literary Review



'Short but intense… [Strang] clearly realises that her readers are watching out for the first sign of any dash towards the predictable. Her talent lies in the way that she keeps them inside Quinn’s fraying, frightened mind... Imaginative, compelling and refreshingly cliche-free.' Books from Scotland



'This novel had us gripped from start to finish!' Closer



'A subtle and sophisticated exploration of forgiveness and motive.' Books from Scotland

Book Description

A piercingly original debut about the limits of forgiveness, from an award-winning Scottish poet

Review:

4.7 out of 5

94.29% of customers are satisfied

5.0 out of 5 stars Exquisite, unusual, bold and moving

V.M. · 22 April 2023

This is a wonderful novel, exquisitely written. Em Strang has written something emotionally bold and powerful, and she has a poet's ear for the rhythm and sound of words. I loved her use of repetition and recurring images to build Quinn's emotional world. The illustrations were lovely too.

5.0 out of 5 stars heart-rending

P.S. · 7 March 2023

This book will stay with me. It left a lump in the throat whilst reading that you couldn’t quite put a finger on. So well told and with so much compassion.

5.0 out of 5 stars An important piece of literature. Strangely, both disconcerting and comforting. A fine work.

J.S. · 16 March 2023

I read Quinn in just three sittings. I think each reader will discover something about themselves they did not know before. They may not understand precisely what they have discovered, but that is part of the fascinating journey taken with Quinn in this bravest of novels.

4.0 out of 5 stars Weird and original

A.S. · 2 March 2023

A prisoner is serving a sentence for a murder he believes he hasn't committed, and when the woman is found he will be released - so he thinks. He spends his days in a surreal world of repetition, bizarre sightings and disturbing dreams.The story is told in his distinctive voice, a narrative of his unaccountability, distorted memory and the pain these bring him. Symbols and motifs repeat often, with poetic frequency - like the passing of time, sunrise, the dark blue colour, almost black, and 'I have done nothing wrong.' As part of his parole and to come to terms with what he did, he moves in with the murdered woman's disabled mother to act as her carer at her request. Their relationship is complex and surrounded by more symbolism and lots of death.​A strange and unusual short book, more poem than novel, that looks at the power of the mind when dealing with trauma. Original, abstract and very unsettling.

4.0 out of 5 stars Distinctive and striking examination of forgiveness

G.Y. · 18 April 2023

The author of the novel is a poet, novelist, workshop facilitator and Creative Writing Teacher, most noticeably and relevantly for this novel at Dumfries Prison – which is what lead her to this examination of “incarceration, male violence and radical forgiveness”. She has been writing the novel since 2019 and it was shortlisted (as a work in progress) for the 2019 Fitzcarraldo First Novel Prize, before being picked up for 2023 publication by Oneworld.In form it is both short (less than 200 generously spaced pages), image filled and fragmentary – partly a long form poem although the author has said she preferred the novel form as “I tend to use poetry as a vehicle for exploring love, in particular spiritual love and [this novel is] to do with evil and excavating the masculine psyche in relation to violence”.It is narrated by (Tomek) Quinn of mixed Irish/Polish parentage, and who is, we realise, serving a lengthy prison sentence for the murder of a girl Andrea who has been his friend, sweetheart and near-neighbour since he was 5-6 years old. Quinn himself though seems convinced Andrea is just missing although we quickly realise that his grasp on linear reality is as tenuous as his narrative voice is fractured.At some point Quinn receives and ultimately reads a series of long handwritten letters from Andrea’s mother Jennifer. Written over a period of six years, they are for the most part blazingly accusatory – telling of her pain and hurt at the loss of Andrea (who was not just her beloved daughter but also her full time carer) and resulting hatred and cursing of Quinn. The last letter though tells of her realisation “slowly and with fierce reluctance – that there’s only one means to truly heal the pain and loss that you have bought to my life: somehow I have to find a way to forgive you. God help me!” and proposes the radical step, which she has agreed with the Parole Board, of Quinn being released to act as her live-in carer.At least in Quinn‘s narrative this takes place (I was unclear if it did in reality) and Quinn goes to live with Jennifer, having to come to terms with the weight of what it is that Jennifer has offered him and whether he can accept her mercy and achieve some form of redemption.But at the same time he immediately comes under the cynical suspicion of her neighbour Farah and ultimately things unravel.Quinn ends where he begins – back in prison although perhaps closer to understanding his own actions and starting to come to terms with the consequences of them for him and for others.Many phrases and images occur time and time again in the spiralling narrative.As per her website, the author’s “writing preoccupations are with nature (birds and horses feature in almost all my poems) and spirituality”- and images and references to white swans (and their feathers) and to horses (“As a child I had been able to look at a horse and know gladness deep inside me. Something about the shape and the breath and the presence of the animal told me that life was good, that my body was worthy, that my heart was beating for a reason”) are integral to the text. Lavender is also key.Recurring phrases include “Let it be know that I have suffered”, “My small extra bone tapped and ticked”, “Things have been done that hurt the mouth to speak of” and “Five years passed, or the sun and the moon had tricked me”The book is also influenced by biblical quotes quoted (often out of context) to Quinn by his mother.And one recurring passage with a series of striking images must, the reader feels, relate to the point of Andrea’s death.Overall, this was a distinctive and striking novel – but I was unclear that its form was solid enough to bear the weight of its important, but difficult, themes.By any book which understands the fundamental importance of forgiveness is one to at least recommend.

Haunting book about the power of forgiveness

J.M.P. · 3 January 2024

This book will stay with me for a long time, one women's act of forgiveness and love changes a life... truly beauty from ashes

Fascinating story. Highly recommended.

w.v.a. · 6 March 2023

I wouldn’t know how to label this fascinating book; it’s not a novel in the sense as we know it, it’s neither a short story or novella. It’s more a poetic tale on the workings of the mind of a mentally ‘disturbed’ man, Quinn, who has taken his family name as his first name.The story reflects the way Quinn sees the world around him and his own place in it.I couldn’t put down this poetic narrative and I’m looking forward to reading more of Em Strang’s poetry works.

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Quinn: 'Hypnotically beautiful' - Mark Haddon

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BHD6499

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