Will
£14.99
Will’s mother’s hokey homily – ‘Waste not, want not’ – hisses in his ears as he oscillates furiously on the spot, havering on the threshold between the bedroom and the dying one, all the while cradling the plastic leech of the syringe in the crook of his arm. Oscillating furiously, and, as he presses the plunger home a touch more – and more – he hears it again and again: ‘Waaaste nooot, waaant nooot!’, whooshing into and out of him, while the blackness wells up at the periphery of his vision, and his hackneyed heart begins to beat out weirdly arrhythmic drum fills – even hitting the occasional rim-shot on his resonating rib cage. He waits, paralysed, acutely conscious, that were he simply to press his thumb right home, it’ll be a cartoonish death: That’s all folks! as the aperture screws shut forever.
‘Darkly angelic prose… a joy to read, with the final part in particular recalling David Foster Wallace at his best’ Alex Preston, Observer
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Will’s mother’s hokey homily, Waste not, want not… hisses in his ears as he oscillates furiously on the spot, havering on the threshold between the bedroom and the dying one… all the while cradling the plastic leech of the syringe in the crook of his arm. Oscillating furiously, and, as he’d presses the plunger home a touch more… and more, he hears it again and again: Waaaste nooot, waaant nooot..! whooshing into and out of him, while the blackness wells up at the periphery of his vision, and his hackneyed heart begins to beat out weirdly arrhythmic drum fills – even hitting the occasional rim-shot on his resonating rib cage. He waits, paralysed, acutely conscious, that were he simply to press his thumb right home, it’ll be a cartoonish death: That’s all folks! as the aperture screws shut forever.
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‘Self’s writing has the same technicolour velocity, malign comedy as his best novels’ Evening Standard
‘Refreshing . . . Self is never happier than when frolicking in the hinterland between sincerity and performative, winking hyperbole’ TLS
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