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No One Is Talking About This

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No One Is Talking About This

By: Patricia Lockwood
Narrated by: Kristen Sieh
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About this listen

Bloomsbury presents No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood, read by Kristen Sieh.

‘A masterpiece’ Guardian
‘I really admire and love this book’ Sally Rooney
‘An intellectual and emotional rollercoaster’ Daily Mail
‘I can’t remember the last time I laughed so much reading a book’ David Sedaris
‘It moved me to tears’ Elizabeth Day

THE ONLY BOOK SHORTLISTED FOR BOTH THE BOOKER PRIZE AND THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2021

This is a story about a life lived in two halves.

It’s about what happens when real life collides with the increasing absurdity of a world accessed through a screen.

It’s about living in world that contains both an abundance of proof that there is goodness, empathy, and justice in the universe, and a deluge of evidence to the contrary.

It's a meditation on love, language and human connection from one of the most original voices of our time.

‘An utterly distinctive mixture of depth, dazzling linguistic richness, anarchic wit and raw emotional candour’ Rowan Williams

A 2021 Book of the Year: Sunday Times, Guardian, Daily Mail, Telegraph, Evening Standard, The Times, New Statesman, Red, Observer, Independent, Daily Telegraph

©2021 Patricia Lockwood (P)2021 Penguin Random House Audio Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Heartfelt Witty Tear-jerking Thought-Provoking

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All stars
Most relevant
The first part was a struggle. Very chaotic. I didin't get all those irritating and worthless thoughts. So unnecessary in normal life. The second part was very emotional.

Chaotic

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I think people struggle with this as its style is quite fragmentary and disjointed - but reflecting the fragmentary nature of writing in the internet (herein nicknamed ‘The Portal’), it captures something desperate and urgent about the narrator’s grapple with the personal and real, versus the synthetic and ephemeral world of the Portal in which she has carved a career, and an identity.

The vulgarity of some of the descriptions in the first half are necessary to establish the harsh, brazen world of extremes and binaries in the internet world, which contrasts with the complexity of the real world - the subtleties of the delicate personal grief which unfolds in the second half, overlaid with bittersweet joy of a tiny new life.

I cried at the end in the acknowledgements.

Even if it’s not your cup of tea, give it a chance

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This is very very very well read. And written. I’m going to listen again. Now

Writing. Reading. Everything

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I remember reading James Joyce’s “Ulysses” at university and being utterly baffled by the cacophony of references - snatches of popular songs, references to current affairs, advertising slogans etc. - and being told by the lecturer that if we’d read it in 1922, we would have “got it”. Now, in 2021, reading “No One is Talking About This” I think I know what they meant. I come from the same generation as Lockwood and recognize many of the allusions and references embedded in the stream of this novel’s consciousness. It is immensely satisfying. And the second part is as beautiful and heartbreaking as the first part is dazzling.

The (very much shorter) Ulysses of our time

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This book looks at our relationship with the Internet and where it might lead. Then how one moment can change everything and this can teach us to appreciate every minute in the physical world as well.

A beautifully written poetic novel. Perfect for these pandemic times to remind us as we emerge blinking in the sunlight to appreciate real relationships as well as virtual ones.

A lyrical book about love, life and the portal

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