Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Jan 2018
336 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
"The sort of book that cuts you off from your family and has you walking blindly through seven lanes of traffic with your face pressed obliviously to the page." - James Marriott, The Times (London)
Do you or your partner spend more than you earn? Have your credit card debts evolved into collection letters? Has either of you received a court summons? Has either of you considered turning to a life of a crime? You are not alone. We know. We can help.
Welcome to the Transition.
While taking part in the Transition, you and your partner will spend six months living under the supervision of your mentors, two successful adults of a slightly older generation. Freed from your financial responsibilities, you will be coached through the key areas of the scheme - Employment, Nutrition, Responsibility, Relationship, Finances, and Self-respect - until you are ready to be reintegrated into adult society.
At the end of your six months, who knows what discoveries you'll have made about yourself? The "friends" you no longer need. The talents you'll have found time to nurture. The business you might have kick-started. Who knows where you'll be?
"Starred and Boxed Review. [A] sharp, witty debut ... the novel splendidly hums along. Kennard calibrates satire and sentiment, puncturing glib diagnoses of a generation's shortcomings while producing a nuanced portrait of a marriage." - Publishers Weekly
"[A] biting debut ... An intelligent satire about our collective future ... Kennard's gift for dialogue and fluent imagination are surely signs of promising things to come." - Booklist
"A somewhat lighter and more contemporary 1984, with a corporation subbing for a government." - Library Journal
"A scathing romp about late capitalism's social ills." - Kirkus
"A dystopia in a velvet glove ... Richly enjoyable ... Chilling ... [Kennard's poetry] combines accessibility with formal daring and a twist of surrealism. He brings all these qualities to this novel, along with a jaunty lightness that makes the pages slip by deceptively easily." - The Guardian (UK)
"The sort of book that cuts you off from your family and has you walking blindly through seven lanes of traffic with your face pressed obliviously to the page." - The Times (UK)
"Uncomfortably familiar ... Gripping." - The Financial Times (UK)
"An eerie premonition at the fate of today's squeezed middle ... Kennard has taken topical issues of today, added in technological advancement of tomorrow and shown how it could result in social disaster ... An insightful work of fiction with dark wit and unsettling accuracy." - The Irish Times
"Extremely smart and extremely funny, Luke Kennard's first novel is a brilliant dismantling of our corporatized century. It also features one of the most endearingly hapless heroes since Lucky Jim." - Paul Murray, author of Skippy Dies and The Mark and the Void
This information about The Transition was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Luke Kennard is the author of several collections of poetry. He won an Eric Gregory Award in 2005 and was short-listed for the Forward Prize for Best Collection in 2007 and for the International Dylan Thomas Prize in 2017. He lectures at the University of Birmingham and was selected by the Poetry Book Society as one of the Next Generation Poets in 2014. The Transition is his first novel.
The House on Biscayne Bay
by Chanel Cleeton
As death stalks a gothic mansion in Miami, the lives of two women intertwine as the past and present collide.
The Flower Sisters
by Michelle Collins Anderson
From the new Fannie Flagg of the Ozarks, a richly-woven story of family, forgiveness, and reinvention.
The Funeral Cryer by Wenyan Lu
Debut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman's midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
