Description
Book SynopsisSHORTLISTED FOR THE ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARD 2024
LONGLISTED FOR THE NOTA BENE PRIZE 2024
The radical, joyful follow-up to the Goldsmiths Prize-winning Sterling Karat Gold.
This is the story of Corey Fah, a writer on the cusp of a windfall, courtesy of the Social Evils prize committee, for whom the actual gong - and with it the prize money - remains tantalizingly out of reach.
Neon beige, with UFO-like qualities, the elusive trophy leads Corey, with partner Drew and surprise eight-legged companion Bambi Pavok, on a spectacular detour through their childhood in the Forest - via an unlikely stint on reality TV. Navigating those twin horrors, through wormholes and time loops, Corey learns - the hard way - the difference between a prize and a gift.
Both radiant and revolutionary, Isabel Waidner''s fiction gleefully takes a hammer to false binaries, boundaries and borders, turning walls into bridges and words into wings. Fierce, fluid and
Trade Review
[The] writer everyone is talking about . . . and deservedly so . . . Their explosive sensibility and style are as far removed from mediocre prose and middle-class manners as you can imagine -- Bernardine Evaristo
Buckle up! Corey Fah Does Social Mobility is a head-spinning, mind-bending roller coaster of fun, horror, and subversion. I love it -- Kamila Shamsie
The fantastical and the familiar merge in this energetic inquiry into class politics and cultural capital . . . Since their debut novel, Gaudy Bauble, in 2017, Waidner's writing has been admired for its remarkable innovation, unflinching political vision, vivid language and, frankly, hilarious charm . . . It is tempting to predict that this book, which gives a whole new dimension to the idea of the zeitgeist . . . will see Waidner step on to the podium once more -- Lara Pawson * Guardian *
With each book, they get better and better. Corey Fah Does Social Mobility is that rare thing: An authentically radical novel that is joyful and hilarious -- Merve Emre
A radical, rebellious novel . . . [Waidner] brings a fresh lens to our troubled world . . . A biting, state of the nation work that raises the profile of civilisation's appointed underdogs and challenges the status quo of binary consciousness . . . bold, feisty work -- Em Strang * Observer *
[It is] rare to find a novel with real stylistic and political ambition -- Zadie Smith * Guardian *
[A] sprightly novel . . . [Waidner] mischievously challenges received notions of social mobility -- Ellen Peirson-Hagger * The New Statesman *
Filled with wickedly sharp commentary and well-aimed digs at hypocrisy and injustice . . . Waidner's idiosyncratic prose [paints] terrifying, transcendent and topsy-turvy images . . . Corey Fah Does Social Mobility is, perhaps surprisingly, both sentimental and optimistic in its depiction of love (for ourselves and those around us) as a radical act -- Alice Wadsworth * The Times Literary Supplement *
It's beginning to look like there's nothing the immensely talented Waidner can't do * Kirkus (starred review) *
Waidner's original prose spins fantastical imagery with social commentary * Frieze *
A dazzlingly original satirical novel about a writer on the edge of glory but struggling to get their hands on the prize * Harper's Bazaar *
Waidner gifts us with another wild and radical tale * Hero 'Essential Reading' *
A bitingly sharp social satire * Marie Claire *
