Ducks, Newburyport

by Lucy Ellmann


Ducks, Newburyport is a 2019 novel by British author Lucy Ellmann. The novel
is written in the stream of consciousness narrative style, and consists of
mostly a single sentence, running over more than 1000 pages. It won the 2019
Goldsmiths Prize was shortlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize.


The novel's narrator is an unnamed middle-aged woman who lives in
Newcomerstown, Ohio, is married, has four children, and was formerly a
college teacher. She was treated for cancer and then quit her teaching
career to help in her recovery. She engages herself in cooking. In one
incident, the narrator's mother was saved by her sister from drowning in a
lake in Newburyport, Massachusetts after she went chasing after ducks. The
story narrates various global problems that cross the narrator's mind. A
sub-plot talks of a mountain lioness who is in search of her cubs; her
adventures punctuate the novel.

Most of the novel comprises a long sentence, broken in clauses and separated
by commas and semi-colons. It uses "the fact that" as the phrase beginning
many of these clauses. The novel was published by Galley Beggar Press in
Norwich, England after it was rejected by Ellmann's regular publisher,
Bloomsbury.

A critic writing for Kirkus Reviews said the book was an example of
"literary experimentation that, while surely innovative, could have made its
point in a quarter the space", and compared it with Ulysses for its size and
word association games. ...



ISBN-13          : 978-1-913111-04-5

Publication Date : September 10, 2019

Pages            : 1040.

 
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/43412920-ducks-newburyport