Verwandte Artikel zu Not Working

Not Working - Hardcover

Owens, Lisa

 
9780812988819: Not Working
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0812988817 ISBN 13: 9780812988819
Verlag: DIAL PR, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

In the tradition of Jennifer Close’s Girls in White Dresses comes a “a pin-sharp, utterly addictive debut” (Vogue U.K.) told in vignettes that speak to a new generation not trying to have it all but hoping to make sense of it all.

“Everyone’s been talking about this book. . . . Charming and funny, this read is simply delightful.”—Bustle

“A deadpan comic debut for the procrastination generation.”—The Guardian

Claire Flannery has just quit her office job, hoping to take some time to discover her real passion. The problem is, she’s not exactly sure how to go about finding it. Without the distractions of a regular routine, Claire confronts the best and worst parts of herself: the generous, attentive part that visits her grandmother for tea and cooks special meals for her boyfriend, Luke, and the part that she feels will never measure up and makes regrettable comments after too many glasses of wine. What emerges is a candid, moving portrait of a clear-eyed heroine trying to forge her own way, a wholly relatable character whose imperfections and uncanny observations highlight what makes us all different and yet inescapably linked.

Praise for Not Working

“Ruefully funny . . . features a kind of millennial Bridget Jones whose red wine–and–TED Talk–fueled pursuit of a higher purpose in life leads to hard truths and hangovers.”—Vogue

“In this laugh-out-loud debut, Claire Flannery is a lost soul who quits her day job to discover her true passion. In taking a hard look at her own character, Claire finds that her loveable qualities are sometimes squashed by mistakes, like the evenings she blurts inappropriate remarks after too many glasses of wine. [Lisa] Owens’s story is a smart, relatable and delicious debut.”—Harper’s Bazaar
 
“It’s no mean feat to fashion a novel out of the stuff of everyday life. . . . Fortunately, Owens is quite a writer. . . . Not Working works because there is lots going on beneath its placid, ordinary surface. . . . With this funny, serious debut, Lisa Owens has proved that she’s one to watch.”—The New Statesman

“There are sharp observations about generational change, particularly on the topic of work. . . . The novel is a light read but it raises some timely issues. . . . A secure job with a future is not that easy to find, as Claire’s comic and compelling tale serves to show. This book offers a form of catharsis for anyone who has felt that they are not quite doing their job right. . . . It is soothing to find you are not the only one noodling along in your career.”—Financial Times

“Stellar . . . [Owens has an] ability to take the potentially trite problem-of-the-privileged trope and deftly craft it into readable fun.”—Publishers Weekly

“Owens offers a millennial take on the traditional British chick-lit heroine. . . . Claire is a realistically awkward character who will appeal to readers looking for a less-angsty take on the new adult trend.”—Booklist

“A novel as insightful about the contemporary dilemmas facing young professionals as it is sharp, incisive and laugh-out-loud funny.”—The Observer

“Lots of people say they laugh out loud when they read a book they love. But in the case of Not Working, I really did laugh out loud, often and raucously.”—Elisabeth Egan, author of A Window Opens

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Lisa Owens was born in 1985 and grew up in Glasgow and Hertfordshire. Not Working is her first novel. She lives in London.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

1

Wallflower

There is a man standing outside my flat wearing khaki-­greens and a huge “Free Palestine” badge.

“Are you the owner?” he asks, and I turn to see if he is talking to someone else, but there is no one behind me. It buys me a second to remind myself which side of the Israel-­Palestine conflict I am on.

“I think so, yes,” I say, and then with more confidence, because now I’m sure, “Yes, I’m definitely the owner.”

He scratches his neck, which is gray with dirt. His ears have the same ashy hue.

“You need to get the buddleia removed. It’s a hazard.”

“Oh right,” I say, looking up to where he is pointing, to a plaster pillar on the front of the building, topped by an ornamental detail. I’ve never noticed it before, but now I’m embarrassed to see that the paintwork is cracked and filthy. If anyone had asked me to name it—­if a million pounds had been resting on it—­I would have guessed it was called a balustrade. “Does it not serve a structural purpose?” I say.

He stares at me, tugging on his beard, which tapers into a slender plait.

“It’s a weed. It’s not supposed to be there,” he says, and now I understand: there is a plant sprouting from the top of the thing, a spray of purple flowers. It’s quite pretty.

“And . . . sorry, who are you?” I ask, wondering if he is from the city council, a neighbor or an interfering passerby.

“Colin Mason, MBE,” he says and offers a dusty hand.

I hesitate for a fraction of a second before good manners kick in and I take it.

“Claire,” I say.

“Shall I deal with it, then?” he asks, nodding up at the buddleia. “I’ll do a bit of a paint job while I’m up there too.”

“Mm, just . . . I’m going to have to talk to my boyfriend about it first. Because we share ownership. How can I reach you?”

“I’ll be around,” he says. “You’ll see me about.”

I go inside to wash my hand and call Luke. A woman answers, his colleague Fiona.

“He’s scrubbing up for surgery,” she says. “Can I get him to call you back?”

“Would you mind just holding the phone to him so I can have a quick word? Two seconds, I promise.”

There’s a fumbling noise and then Luke’s voice.

“What’s up?”

“There’s a problem with our flat. A buddleia needs removing.”

“A what?”

I sigh. “It’s a weed. A purple flowering weed? The guy outside said it needs to go.”

“What guy?”

“Colin Mason.”

“Who’s that?”

“He has an MBE. He was pretty adamant.”

“So what do you want to do? Do you need to call someone? Can I leave it with you? Claire,” he says, “I’ve got to go.”

“Yes, leave it with me. What do you want to do for dinner?”

“He won’t be home for dinner,” Fiona says. “He’s going to be working late.”

“Oh,” I say. I think I’ll sit tight on the buddleia thing for a while; see if it develops.

Tube

Three women opposite talk about the weather as if it’s a friend they don’t much like.

“And that’s another thing,” says one, leaning in. “My no-­tights-­till-­October rule has gone straight out the window.”

Her companions bob their heads, uncross and recross their nylon-­clad legs.

Wallflower

My mother phones me on her lunch break. I can hear she’s in a cafe.

“Where are you?” she asks, as though she’s picking up a baffling background cacophony, instead of the silence in my kitchen.

“At home.”

“I see. How’s the you-­know-­what going?”

She means “job hunt”: calling it the “you-­know-­what” is, incredibly, less annoying than the question itself.

“Yep. Fine. Just trying to push on.”

“Listen, before you go, what do you make of this? I had an awful dream last night that I saw Diane, the . . . Diane from work. It was definitely Diane, but in the dream I thought she was someone else, a stranger.”

Until now I have only heard my mother describe her as “Diane the black receptionist.” I have a feeling there is more to come.

“Funnily enough”—­this is said as though it’s just occurred to her—­“I did see a woman who I thought was Diane yesterday in town, and went to say hello but then realized it wasn’t her.” She laughs. “Claire, what do you think? Do you think she would have been offended?”

“Who,” I say, because I can’t resist, “Diane or the person you thought was Diane?”

“The other lady. Not Diane. Do you think she would have known that I confused her with someone else, with another—­”

“Another woman of color?” I help her out.

“Oh,” my mother says, “I don’t think that’s very PC. I don’t think you can say ‘colored’ nowadays.”

Tube

A few seats down the car, there’s an old man knitting, bald and cozy in a big white woolen cardigan. I smile at him and raise my eyebrows, and when I do, I see the earrings, purple dangly ones, and realize it isn’t an old man at all but a woman, not so old, my mother’s age maybe, who has lost all her hair. She grins at me, the needles clicking away, and I keep my eyebrows up, smiling hard at my hands, which lie still in my lap.

Wake

After the main course is cleared away, the waiters—­who are really just teenagers—­bring out dessert: bowls of melting ice cream and fruit swimming in syrup. I’m sitting at the children’s table with the other children. (We’re all over twenty-­five.) My cousin Stuart, who beneath his suit jacket is wearing a “No Fear” T-­shirt, asks me what I’m doing these days.

“I’m working that out,” I say. I’ve had a lot of wine: it keeps coming and I keep drinking it. “I quit my job two weeks ago so I could take a bit of time to try to figure out why I’m here. Not in a religious way, but I believe everyone has a purpose. Like, how you were made to be in computers. That makes total, perfect sense.” I stop, worried suddenly that he’s a normal engineer and not a software engineer, but he nods.

“Marketing wasn’t your calling, then.”

“Creative communications,” I correct him.

“Won’t lie: I never really knew what that meant.”

“It . . .” I prepare to launch into an explanation, then realize I may never need to again, “doesn’t matter anymore.”

“There aren’t any spoons,” Stuart says, and I beckon one of the teenagers over.

“Could you bring us some spoons, please?” I am indignant that I should even have to ask, and my tone is pleasingly chilly. The boy waiter smirks. When he comes back, he’s clutching a bouquet of knives, which he releases in a silver cascade in front of me.

“No spoons left,” he says. “No forks either. We’re really busy today.”

I shake my head. “Unbelievable,” I mutter to Stuart...

„Über diesen Titel“ kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Verlag
DIAL PR
Erscheinungsdatum
2016
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0812988817
ISBN 13 
9780812988819
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
256
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
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