Cold Water — Gwendoline Riley

Carmel McKisco is wry, volatile and full of longing: a 20-year-old working nights in a dive bar in Manchester, England. Cut off from her family, she forges odd alliances with her customers, daydreams about escaping to Cornwall, her own Elysian Fields, and nurtures mordant fixations on Tony, her charismatic ex, and Steven, her washed-up adolescent hero. As she spins out the days and nights of an unrelenting rainy winter, she finds herself compelled to confront her romantic preoccupations. Peopled with memorable characters and imbued with a subtle sense of raw loneliness beneath the banter and whimsy, this remarkable debut is as cool and assured as Carmel herself. Cold Water was chosen by the Guardian as one of the five outstanding British debut novels of 2002. “I wouldn't just recommend this book to friends, I'd buy it for them.” -- The Guardian “[Cold Water] makes you think of Denis Johnson or Anne Tyler ... effortless stylistic sleight of hand and vivid, tactile humanity.” -- Alan Warner, author of The Sopranos “Gwendoline Riley is only twenty-two, but her short, sharp prose sets her book apart from other coming-of-age novels.”