We Pretty Pieces of Flesh
A Novel
by Colwill Brown
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Pub Date Mar 04 2025 | Archive Date Apr 04 2025
Henry Holt & Company | Henry Holt and Co.
Description
An exuberant and ribald debut novel about three adolescent girls, as sweetly vulnerable as they are cunning and tough, coming of age in a gritty postindustrial town in nineties Yorkshire, England
“Ask anyone non-Northern, they’ll only know Donny as punchline of a joke or place they changed trains once ont way to London.” But Doncaster’s also the home of Rach, Shaz, and Kel, bezzies since childhood and Donny lasses through and through. Never mind that Rach is skeptical of Shaz’s bolder plots; or that Shaz, who comes from a rougher end of town, feels left behind when the others begin plotting a course to uni; or that Kel sometimes feels split in two trying to keep the peace—the girls are inseparable, their friendship as indestructible as they are. But as they grow up and away from one another, a long-festering secret threatens to rip the trio apart.
Written in a Yorkshire dialect that brings a place and its people magnificently to life, Colwill Brown’s debut novel spans decades as its heroines come of age, never shying from the ugly truths of girlhood. Like Trainspotting and Shuggie Bain, We Pretty Pieces of Flesh tracks hard-edged lives and makes them sing, turning one overlooked and forgotten town into the very center of the world.
Advance Praise
“With this debut, Colwill Brown announces herself as unforgettable. The music and precision of her language, the fun and fervor of her characters, all these things make We Pretty Pieces of Flesh a wondrous, luminous novel.”
—Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of the National Book Award finalist Chain-Gang All-Stars
“A kinetic and incantatory portrait of the rough-and-tumble world of girlhood. I fell headlong for the tough, vulnerable, and whip-smart characters at the center of this spectacularly original debut.”
—Laura van den Berg, author of State of Paradise
“Following Kel, Shaz and Rach’s lives from childhood to adulthood is a bit like watching King Lear being acted out every day. The stakes are so high, the passions so deep, the triumphs so vivid, but happily, in the face of many missed buses and betrayals, they have each other and another voddy and kebab. We Pretty Pieces of Flesh is one of the most remarkable portraits I’ve ever read of friendship.”
—Margot Livesey, author of The Road from Belhaven
“Colwill Brown is, simply, brilliant and original on every level; I haven’t read a first book that floored me so thoroughly since Eimear McBride’s A Girl is a Half-formed Thing. We Pretty Pieces of Flesh is astonishing, as hilarious and wrenching as life itself. Her characters and sentences knock around my brain still, moving, unsettling, indelible. She is a writer like nobody else.”
—Elizabeth McCracken, author of The Hero of This Book and the National Book Award Finalist The Giant’s House
“Blistering, brilliant, savage and smart. This is a superb debut and Colwill Brown is the real thing.”
—Eimear McBride, author of A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing
“A big, brave, beautiful scream of a book. It is haunting and hilarious and heartbreaking, so tender, so raw, so deeply felt, so full of insight and sympathy and, above all else, so exquisitely written. We Pretty Pieces of Flesh is a rare wonder of a book and Colwill Brown is a writer of astounding originality.”
—Edward Carey, author of Edith Holler
“Tender and raucous, Shaz, Kel and Rach’s friendship is brilliantly realized. We Pretty Pieces of Flesh is a novel brimming with rough poetry, heart and mischief.”
—Ferdia Lennon, author of Glorious Exploits
“Colwill Brown is a tremendous writer–tender and tough, compassionate and sharply funny. We Pretty Pieces of Flesh is extraordinary–I grew to love Rach, Kel and Shaz as if they were my own childhood friends. A blazingly brilliant novel by a writer who, luckily for us, is just getting started.”
—Molly Antopol, author of The UnAmericans
Available Editions
EDITION | Other Format |
ISBN | 9781250342881 |
PRICE | $27.99 (USD) |
PAGES | 336 |
Links
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
For fans of Michael Magee's Close to Home, We Pretty Pieces of Flesh is a coming of age story, set in working class Yorkshire in the 90s. It takes a bit of time to get into the groove of the Yorkshire dialect but much like Close to Home, it drew me in closer to the story, really putting me in the mix.
Honest and at times heartbreaking, Brown paints a picture of girlhood amidst the changing and increasingly difficult world of living in a postindustrial economy. With hints of Shuggie Bain and Trainspotting, Brown puts the reader right into the story, carrying you through the years with your cast of characters.
Not for the faint of heart but worth the read for those willing to take the time to get into the story and attach to the characters, We Pretty Pieces of Flesh will stay with me for a long, long time.
Readers who liked this book also liked:
Jodi Picoult; Jennifer Finney Boylan
General Fiction (Adult), Literary Fiction, Women's Fiction