Peach

by Emma Glass

Overview

Introducing a dazzling new literary voice--a wholly original novel as groundbreaking as the works of Eimear McBride and Max Porter.

Something has happened to Peach. Staggering around the town streets in the aftermath of an assault, Peach feels a trickle of blood down her legs, a lingering smell of her anonymous attacker on her skin. It hurts to walk, but she manages to make her way to her home, where she stumbles into another oddly nightmarish reality: Her parents can't seem to comprehend that anything has happened to their daughter.

The next morning, Peach tries to return to the routines of her ordinary life, going to classes, spending time with her boyfriend, Green, trying to find comfort in the thought of her upcoming departure for college. And yet, as Peach struggles through the next few days, she is stalked by the memories of her unacknowledged trauma. Sleeping is hard when she is haunted by the glimpses of that stranger's gaping mouth. Working is hard when her assailant's rancid smell still fills her nostrils. Eating is impossible when her stomach is swollen tight as a drum. Though she tries to close her eyes to what has happened, Peach at last begins to understand the drastic, gruesome action she must take.

In this astonishing debut, Emma Glass articulates the unspeakable with breathtaking verve. Intensely physical, with rhythmic, visceral prose, Peach marks the arrival of a visionary new voice.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781635571301
Publisher:	Bloomsbury UK
Publication date:	01/28/2018
Pages:	112
Sales rank:	384,962
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Emma Glass was born in Swansea. She studied English literature and creative writing at the University of Kent, then decided to become a nurse and went back to study children's nursing at Swansea University. She lives in South London and is a research nurse specialist at Evelina London Children's Hospital.
@Emmas_Window

Editorial Reviews

★ 10/30/2017
Glass’s fierce and mesmerizing debut straddles the line between fable and novel as it chronicles the effects of a sexual assault on a young woman by a depraved stranger named Lincoln. The book opens with teenage Peach walking home after the attack, battered and bruised. The lingering smells, sounds, and taste of the event are evoked in vivid detail: “charcoal breath,” “burnt flesh,” “crack crackly crackling” blood. Peach tells no one about what happened to her—neither her boyfriend, Green, nor her oversexed parents—and instead stitches her wounds up in the bath using a thread and sewing needle. In subsequent days, nightmares, hallucinations, and fear creep in alongside the evocative scent of roasting sausage and eerie sightings of Lincoln lurking in the woods near Peach’s school. Peach relishes the comfort of Green’s generous embrace while trying to ignore the psychological, emotional, and physical changes roiling within her. These surprisingly tender moments between Green and Peach offer respite from an otherwise challenging story as it leads up to its unforgettable twist ending. Making full use of metaphor, alliteration, and wordplay, Glass’s remarkable prose stretches the boundaries of storytelling throughout, adding depth and strange beauty to this vital novel. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

"In the wake of a horrific sexual assault, titular protagonist Peach attempts to navigate a life that has tilted on its axis. As accounts of sexual assault and misconduct have arisen in recent months, our inability to reckon with such events and their aftermath has only become more clear. This short novel--under 100 pages--confronts the enormity with impressionistic grace." - Elle

"Even as the world confronts report after report of famous men who are sexual predators, we rarely confront the horrific pain that can result from sexual violence. In Peach, a stream-of-consciousness narrative about a girl reeling in the aftermath of a brutal rape, Glass confronts us with the bodily and psychological trauma left behind." - The Huffington Post

"A strange and original work of art that manages to be both genuinely terrifying and undeniably joyful. . . . In this dark poetic myth, Emma Glass takes on the big issues: good and evil, violence, redemption. . . . An immensely talented young writer . . . . Her fearlessness renews one’s faith in the power of literature." - George Saunders, author of LINCOLN IN THE BARDO

"A stunning read . . . I found myself under the spell of Glass' words while reading her provocative prose, which thrummed in my head, words plucking at my very nerves . . . Glass makes clear the cost of reckoning with sexual assault, and . . . the mythic dimensions of Peach's struggle with her trauma make clear that this is an age-old story, and must never stop being told until everyone starts to actually listen." - Nylon

"Peach is an unconventional and disturbing novel about the traumatic aftermath of a sexual assault… In this inventive novel, Emma Glass explores how survivors cope with devastating trauma that seems unexplainable." - Bitch Magazine

"Like a bruised piece of fruit, [Peach] oozes with ruined sweetness that one can't wash off after reading. . . . Glass's imaginative wordplay opens up the very serious subject matter of sexual assault in new, frightening dimensions. In the end, Peach becomes a fable on revenge that is viscerally, gut-wrenchingly delivered." - Shelf Awareness

"Glass's fierce and mesmerizing debut straddles the line between fable and novel as it chronicles the effects of a sexual assault on a young woman . . . Glass's remarkable prose stretches the boundaries of storytelling throughout, adding depth and strange beauty to this vital novel." - starred review, Publishers Weekly

"Glass' prose is capable of breathtaking deftness . . . the clipped sentences and obsessive repetitions provide a terrifying window into a freshly traumatized psyche. With paragraphs that read like poems, this is a memorably crafted entry into the canon of revenge narratives." - Kirkus Reviews

"Peach is a hypnotic, visceral read about a girl named Peach, who is recovering from sexual assault. This is a rape revenge story; but much more than that, it is a book about language. Lyrically and visually driven, Glass's sentences read like powerful poems, and they encompass so much emotion, you’ll find it hard to put this novel down once you start." - Literary Hub, "15 Books You Should Read This January"

"Gorgeously written; this debut novel is a haunting prose poem with surreal overtones. Highly recommended." - starred review, Library Journal

"Glass, a practicing nurse in her native England, aptly portrays Peach's real and mythical struggles between emotion and reason, power and trauma in this darkly arresting debut." - Booklist

"This is a very powerful little novel . . . remarkably well-written." - Book Riot, All the Books! Podcast

"A daring novel." - Sunday Times

"Emma Glass' debut produces a lyrical, heartrending reading experience that explores one woman's response to a horrific assault." - Paste Magazine

"A visceral work . . . Glass uses fragmented, sensory language to evoke the lasting trauma of a sexual assault, from dissociative episodes to body dysmorphia. But for all its emotional insight, the book's boldest choice is its suspension between fantasy and reality." - New Statesman

"This short debut novel is almost certain to be the book everyone is talking about over the next few months and with good reason: It's terrifying and disturbing and sticks with you long after you’ve finished it." - The Awl

"Peach is difficult to read. It follows a teenager in the minutes, hours, and days after being sexually assaulted by a stranger. Though it's only just over 100 pages long, you'll feel every word of this intensely graphic and visceral debut." - Hello Giggles

"'Peach' is a short, experimental, and gut-wrenching debut novel from Emma Glass . . . Glass's work is startling, haunting, and original." - The Riveter, "Books to Read in January"

"The dark poetic world of Emma Glass's debut, Peach, immerses the reader in a young woman's personal hell . . . Through prose that is lyrical, mythic and yet wonderfully clear, Peach expounds on themes of good versus evil, and the base nature of desire, consumption and carnality . . . There is a spoken word vibrancy to Glass's prose . . . A debut of consistently visceral writing . . . Not since Patrick McCabe's The Butcher Boy has such symbolism been used so effectively to make clear one woman's brutal experiences." - Irish Times

"Peach is shocking, revealing and deals with a subject which most authors would shy away from. It is uncomfortable, worthy and brave . . . Glass deserves recognition for her bravery regarding both topic and style." - Scotland on Sunday

"Surreal and unsettling . . . Experimental and lyrical, Glass nods to James Joyce and Dylan Thomas as well as musical influences like Kate Bush and Bon Iver in her acknowledgements. Although . . . it's the disturbing imagery that leaves the biggest impression in this poetic novella." - Big Issue North

"Choose wisely the moment when you pick up Peach, because once you do you'll be unable to put it down until the very last sentence." - Kamila Shamsie, author of HOME FIRE

"Peach is a work of genius. So lonesome and moving, so gruesome, wry, tender and plaintive. It is the new Jane Eyre, and one wild, thrilling ride. Swallow it in one gulp, and carry a spare copy in your pocket. Always." - Lucy Ellmann, author of DOT IN THE UNIVERSE

"Impossible to categorise, intimately weird and exhilaratingly bold, Peach shares literary DNA with Gertude Stein, Hubert Selby Jr, and Eimar McBride, but Emma Glass’s massive talent is all her own." - Laline Paull, author of THE BEES

From the Publisher

★ 10/15/2017
In the aftermath of a brutal sexual assault, Peach, a lovely young college student, is not coping. Numbly dragging herself home, she avoids her parents, showers off the evidence, then, incredibly, stitches up her wounds with needle and thread from her mother's sewing basket. She is unable to tell anyone what happened to her—not her loving but preoccupied parents, not her doting boyfriend, and certainly not the police. Almost immediately, though, she begins receiving creepy letters from her attacker, whom she also believes is stalking her. At the same time, her stomach begins to bloat and grow larger, although a pregnancy test comes back negative. While her increasingly odd behavior concerns her parents and friends, they are unable to understand what is happening to her. VERDICT Gorgeously written, this debut novel is a haunting prose poem with surreal overtones. Highly recommended.—Barbara Love, formerly with Kingston Frontenac P.L., Ont.

Library Journal

2017-10-02
A young woman hyperviscerally experiences the aftermath of her rape.On the first page of Glass' slim debut novel, we meet Peach, a college student stumbling home in the dark after an apparent sexual assault. In truncated, lyrical language, Glass describes Peach scraping her knuckles along a wall, stopping to be sick, leaking blood from between her legs. In the hours and days that follow, the people in her life are largely oblivious to her clear distress—her sex-obsessed parents, her infant baby brother, her doting boyfriend, Green. As she deals with the aftermath of her assault, her perspective is badly warped: she believes her body, especially her belly, is distended and growing. She sees the people around her as food: her brother is a jelly baby (a British variation of a gummy bear), and she thinks of her science professor as Mr Custard, whose "limbs form from liquid.…Blobs. Brilliant yellow. Bold, now. Bubbling." And she keeps catching glimpses—or are they hallucinations?—of Lincoln, her attacker, whom she sees as a sausage, greasy and fat, leering at her through windows or swinging from a streetlamp. As these visions turn into more direct threats, Peach realizes she has to take matters into her own hands before her attacker destroys everything she loves. Glass' stylized writing owes a clear debt to James Joyce's experimental prose, something she acknowledges in a note at the end of the book. Although that's a difficult effect to sustain across even a volume as slender as this one, Glass' prose is capable of breathtaking deftness. And the writing is much more than a gimmick: the clipped sentences and obsessive repetitions provide a terrifying window into a freshly traumatized psyche.With paragraphs that read like poems, this is a memorably crafted entry into the canon of revenge narratives.

Kirkus Reviews