An interesting choice
Milkman Author: Anna Burns Publisher: Faber & Faber
“THE day Somebody McSomebody put a gun to my breast and called me a cat and threatened to shoot me was the same day the milkman died,” begins the 18-year-old protagonist of Belfast-born author Anna Burns’ Milkman. It’s the distinctive stream-of-consciousness narration and the – slightly nutty, breathless, convoluted – voice of the protagonist that carries the novel.
This is Belfast during the Troubles (the 30-year conflict, from 1968 to 1998, over the constitutional status of Northern Ireland) although the city itself is never named or the areas within it. The warring factions are referred to as “defenders” and “renouncers” rather than by allegiance or religion (though it is easy enough to work out who is nationalist Catholic and who unionist Protestant).
In fact, none of the characters are named but are instead referred to obliquely by their relationship to the narrator or by nicknames, so that we have “middle sister” (when the protagonist refers to herself ), her “maybe boyfriend”, “first brother-in-law” and “Milkman”, who is actually not the same person as “real milkman” although he drives a white van like the real one does.
Middle sister just wants to keep her head down (quite literally, as she walks the city streets reading a Victorian novel) and stay out of the inter-community hatred that surrounds her, because to draw attention to yourself is to invite danger.
Despite her caution, though, she attracts the attention of the Milkman, a sinister older man who is a senior figure in the paramilitary. He stalks her, then threatens to kill her boyfriend if she continues to go out with him. She becomes the target of gossip and speculation by the rest of the community.
Burns captures so well what it’s like to be a young adult growing up in a period of civil unrest – the story could be set in any place facing repression and violence.
This is a darkly humorous book that borders on the absurd. Potential readers should be warned, though: This is a very demanding read which requires a great deal of concentration and commitment; it’s easy to lose the thread of the story because of the very long paragraphs, run-on sentences, and lack of chapters.
The novel is, though, one of the most interesting choices to have made the Man Booker Prize shortlist.