Wide Open (novel)
{{Short description|Novel by Nicola Barker released in 1998}}
{{infobox book |
| name = Wide Open
| image = File:Wide Open (novel).jpg
| caption = First edition
| author = Nicola Barker
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| country = United Kingdom
| language = English
| series =
| genre =
| publisher = Faber and Faber
| release_date = 1998
| english_release_date =
| media_type = Print
| pages = 290
| isbn = 978-0-0609-33753
| dewey =
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| preceded_by =
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}}
Wide Open is the third novel by English author Nicola Barker published in 1998 by Faber and Faber. In 2000 it won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.[https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/international-dublin-literary-award-won-by-akhil-sharma-s-family-life-1.2678297 International Dublin Literary Award] Retrieved 29/5/22.
Plot
Set mostly on the Isle of Sheppey on the north coast of Kent on the Thames Estuary. Two men, both called Ronny (one is then renamed to Jim), strike up a strange friendship. Jim invites Ronny to live at his prefab near the beach on the island. They meet an oddball cast of neighbours, including Sara who breeds wild boars and her daughter Lily, Luke a pornographer and part-time nudist, Carrie an optician who is related to Sara who is investigating an inheritance from her father to Ronny. Then Ronny's brother Nathan arrives as their childhood brings bad memories...
Reception
The Daily Telegraph reported on reviews from several publications with a rating scale for the novel out of "Love It", "Pretty Good", "Ok", and "Rubbish": TLS review under "Love It" and Sunday Timesand Spectator reviews under "Pretty Good" and Daily Telegraph, Guardian, Times, Independent, Mail on Sunday, and Literary Review reviews under "Ok" and Sunday Telegraph review under "Rubbish".{{cite news |title=Books of the moment: What the papers said |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-daily-telegraph/151607874/|access-date=19 July 2024 |work=The Daily Telegraph |date=11 Apr 1998|page=70}}{{cite news |title=Books of the moment: What the papers said |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-daily-telegraph/151607868/|access-date=19 July 2024 |work=The Daily Telegraph |date=4 Apr 1998 |page=70}}
- The IMPAC prize panel praised the novel: '‘Wide Open is word perfect, witty and ironic...The author's focus on marginal lives and on the importance of the dispossessed and the apparently mad persuade us finally that Wide Open possesses a manic energy and taut eloquence worthy of a large, serious and global readership'[https://www.4thestate.co.uk/book/wide-open-9780007462490/ the first of Nicola Barker’s Thames Gateway novels] Retrieved 29/5/22.
- Boyd Tonkin writing in The Independent: 'It combines Nicola Barker's trademark qualities of offbeat comedy and quirky characterisation with an emotional darkness and depth that marked it, for many critics, as her breakthrough ...The novel mixes an eccentric island backdrop – a Barker speciality – with a cast of intriguing oddballs, pin-sharp comic dialogue, and a sinister undercurrent of violence and abuse' [https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/barker-s-tale-of-eccentrics-wins-richest-fiction-prize-278583.html Barker's tale of eccentrics wins richest fiction prize] Retrieved 29/5/22.
References
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{{succession box|title=International Dublin Literary Award recipient|before=Ingenious Pain|after=No Great Mischief|years=2000}}
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