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A SUNDAY TIMES BEST BOOK OF 2024
A BBC MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2024
AN INDEPENDENT BEST FICTION TO READ IN 2024
A NEW STATESMAN FICTION HIGHLIGHT OF 2024
A GUARDIAN BEST BOOK TO LOOK OUT FOR IN 2024
AN i-D FICTION HIGHLIGHT TO BE EXCITED FOR IN 2024

‘A deeply felt and rich enactment of love, loneliness and personal triumph that leaves an indelible mark on modern Queer life’ OCEAN VUONG

The town was once a hub of industry. A place where men toiled underground in darkness, picking and shovelling in the dust and the sleck. It was dangerous and back-breaking work but it meant something. Once, the town provided, it was important; it had purpose. But what is it now?

Brothers Alex and Brian have spent their whole life in the town where their father lived and his father, too. Now in his middle age and still reeling from the collapse of his personal life, Alex must reckon with a part of his identity he has long tried to conceal. His only child Simon has no memory of the mines. Now in his twenties and working in a call centre, he derives passion from his side hustle in sex work and his weekly drag gigs.

Set across three generations of South Yorkshire mining family, Andrew McMillan’s magnificent debut novel is a lament for a lost way of life as well as a celebration of resilience and the possibility for change.

Publisher Review

Tender and true. It explores with brilliance and deep empathy how our lives - and our secrets - are always intertwined with those who went before us -- DOUGLAS STUART A deeply felt and rich enactment of love, loneliness and personal triumph that leaves an indelible mark on modern Queer life. With the poet's precision and capacious resistance to resolution, wherein doubt is transformed into force, McMillan's first foray into fiction is a magical one -- OCEAN VUONG We already knew that Andrew McMillan could turn a phrase. With his debut novel, he also shows us a rare gift for storytelling. Pity digs deep into the heart and history of South Yorkshire and brings out the black gold of love, longing and loss. A triumph -- JON McGREGOR Pity pays a great poet's tough but tender attention to the unspoken layers and historic fissures which lie beneath the wounded town of the self. This beautiful book about the marks that are left on people and places in turn leaves a deep empathic mark on the reader -- MAX PORTER Pity is as tough, glittering and multilayered as the coal upon which it rests. With lyrical prose and deep tenderness, Andrew McMillan beautifully explores the complex hauntings of love and grief across generations -- LIZ BERRY Truly stunning. A novel that deals with the ways history intervenes in our lives and how we can use our lives to intervene in history. South Yorkshire is a crucible -- HELEN MORT Moving and resilient, Pity explores queer life in a northern English town in a way that is immediately recognisable, full of wounds, history and possibility. Written with the scope and precision that characterises all of McMillan's work, this is a lightning bolt of a book -- SEAN HEWITT In supple, honest prose, Pity questions how we can bear the weight of what came before us. Through an acute exploration of social class, masculinity, sexuality and resistance, McMillan deftly portrays a town grappling with loss amid its post-industrial legacy, while offering a hopeful vision of what the future could look like, if we were given the power to redefine our histories and tell our stories on our own terms -- JESSICA ANDREWS Andrew McMillan's writing is phenomenal, fresh and evocative, compelling and compassionate. Pity is a beautiful and stirring book, vivid and timeless -- SALENA GODDEN Pity is an astounding novel: it is intricately crafted and highly ambitious. Taut, formally inventive and deeply rich in its language, it is driven by characters that will haunt the reader long after the final page has been turned -- OKECHUKWU NZELU