Clear: A Transparent Novel

On September 5, 2003, illusionist David Blaine entered a small Perspex box adjacent to London's Thames River and began starving himself. Forty-four days later, on October 19, he left the box, fifty pounds lighter. That much, at least, is clear. And the rest? The crowds? The chaos? The hype? The rage? The fights? The lust? The filth? The bullshit? The hypocrisy?

Nicola Barker fearlessly crams all that and more into this ribald and outrageous peep show of a novel, her most irreverent, caustic, up-to-the-minute work yet, laying bare the heart of our contemporary world, a world of illusion, delusion, celebrity, and hunger.

Author: Nicola Barker
Publisher: Ecco Press
Published: 06/14/2005
Pages: 352
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.65lbs
Size: 7.90h x 5.20w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9780060797577

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 04/15/2005 pg. 433
Publishers Weekly 05/09/2005 pg. 45
New York Times 09/25/2005 pg. 33
Library Journal 06/01/2005

About the Author
Barker, Nicola: -

Nicola Barker is one of Britain's most original and exciting literary talents. She is the author of two short-story collections: Love Your Enemies [winner of the David Higham Prize and the Macmillan Silver Pen Award] and Heading Inland [winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize]. Her previous novels are Reversed Forecast, Small Holdings, Wide Open Behindlings and Clear, the last of which was long-listed for the 2005 Booker Prize. Her work is translated into twenty languages, and in 2000, she won the IMPAC Award for Wide Open. In 2003, Nicola Barker was named a Granta Best of British Novelist. She lives in London.