Jon McGregor, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things

Catherine Pesso-Miquel (Université Lyon II)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Gina Lyle (University of York), Graham MacPhee (University of Manchester), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 2002

Places

United Kingdom (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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Jon McGregor published his first novel,

If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things,

in 2002, at the age of 26. This novel, like the following, is poetic, elaborately structured, and experimental, making subtle use of the now familiar postmodernist strategies of fragmentation, counterpoint, absence of linearity, and self-reflexivity.

Place and time

Place and time

The main action takes place in an unnamed industrial city in the north of England, on a street where the 19th century houses used to be elegant and opulent, but are now shabby, run down, divided into flats and bedsits, and populated by immigrants, students, and elderly, lower-class people. Half the novel focuses on a single day, August 31st, 1997, when one of the children on that street was overrun by a car. The other half of the book

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2364 words

Citation: Pesso-Miquel, Catherine. "If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 18 July 2017 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=35681, accessed 25 November 2024.]