Description

SHORTLISTED FOR THE ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARD 2024
LONGLISTED FOR THE NOTA BENE PRIZE 2024

A radical, joyful novel from Goldsmiths Prize-winning author Isabel Waidner

In flight from a traumatic rural childhood, Corey Fah has come to earth in a one-bed council flat in the capital. Trapped, with partner Drew, in the limited world which late capitalism has allotted them, they are modestly happy but practically futureless.

Until, one day, Corey is offered a life-changing prize from out of the blue. Things are looking up – but as Corey soon finds, it’s one thing winning a prize in life’s lottery, and quite another being able to collect it – especially if you are a queer, working class immigrant with all of History working against you.

Corey Fah’s pursuit of the elusive prize – and an escape from precarity – is a whirlwind, epic journey through the streets of the city and the time-loops of the past, written with boundless energy and invention.

Social mobility, in this radiant, radical novel, is never a simple step up the ladder, but a hopeful leap into the void.

Praise for Corey Fah Does Social Mobility:

‘A head-spinning, mind-bending roller coaster of fun, horror, and subversion’ Kamila Shamsie

‘A radical, rebellious novel . . . [Waidner] brings a fresh lens to our troubled world’ Observer

[The] writer everyone is talking about . . . and deservedly so’ Bernardine Evaristo

‘Filled with wickedly sharp commentary and well-aimed digs at hypocrisy and injustice’ Times Literary Supplement

Publisher Review

[The] writer everyone is talking about . . . and deservedly so . . . Their explosive sensibility and style are as far removed from mediocre prose and middle-class manners as you can imagine -- Bernardine Evaristo Buckle up! Corey Fah Does Social Mobility is a head-spinning, mind-bending roller coaster of fun, horror, and subversion. I love it -- Kamila Shamsie The fantastical and the familiar merge in this energetic inquiry into class politics and cultural capital . . . Since their debut novel, Gaudy Bauble, in 2017, Waidner's writing has been admired for its remarkable innovation, unflinching political vision, vivid language and, frankly, hilarious charm . . . It is tempting to predict that this book, which gives a whole new dimension to the idea of the zeitgeist . . . will see Waidner step on to the podium once more -- Lara Pawson * Guardian * With each book, they get better and better. Corey Fah Does Social Mobility is that rare thing: An authentically radical novel that is joyful and hilarious -- Merve Emre A radical, rebellious novel . . . [Waidner] brings a fresh lens to our troubled world . . . A biting, state of the nation work that raises the profile of civilisation's appointed underdogs and challenges the status quo of binary consciousness . . . bold, feisty work -- Em Strang * Observer * [It is] rare to find a novel with real stylistic and political ambition -- Zadie Smith * Guardian * [A] sprightly novel . . . [Waidner] mischievously challenges received notions of social mobility -- Ellen Peirson-Hagger * The New Statesman * Filled with wickedly sharp commentary and well-aimed digs at hypocrisy and injustice . . . Waidner's idiosyncratic prose [paints] terrifying, transcendent and topsy-turvy images . . . Corey Fah Does Social Mobility is, perhaps surprisingly, both sentimental and optimistic in its depiction of love (for ourselves and those around us) as a radical act -- Alice Wadsworth * The Times Literary Supplement * It's beginning to look like there's nothing the immensely talented Waidner can't do * Kirkus (starred review) * Waidner's original prose spins fantastical imagery with social commentary * Frieze * A dazzlingly original satirical novel about a writer on the edge of glory but struggling to get their hands on the prize * Harper's Bazaar * Waidner gifts us with another wild and radical tale * Hero 'Essential Reading' * A bitingly sharp social satire * Marie Claire * Darkly funny and thrilling . . . Waidner's queer Kafkaesque romp is great fun * Publishers Weekly * Surreal and splendid . . . an eye-popping carnival that crackles with wit * The Brooklyn Rail * Feisty, funny, playful, and surreal . . . It feels, in the best way, like a spirited romp through someone else's stress dream * New York Times *