Offcomer - Softcover

"Quietly yet powerfully moving" (Times Literary Supplement)

"A portrait of a heroine in search of her identity ... Baker handles it confidently" (Mslexia)

"Stunning ... beautifully written and constructed ... both disturbing and entirely convincing." (Bernard O'Donoghue)

"The low self-esteem and hypersensitivity of youth is captured in Jo Baker's arresting debut." (Independent)

"Quietly moving - her portrayal of her protagonists' unsettled psychology is credible, compelling and intense" (Times)

'Offcomer' is a dialect word from the north of England, used to refer to outsiders, to people who do not belong. Jo Baker's powerful first novel tells the story of Claire, a young woman who feels unable to belong anywhere, even in her own skin. OFFCOMER traces Claire's story from school days in Lancashire, through her time as a student in Oxford, until finally, emerging from an unhappy relationship with a young academic, she finds herself adrift and alone in post-ceasefire Belfast. She is forced at last to confront central questions of her life: who is she, and where, if anywhere, does she belong?