Description

A BOOK TO LOOK OUT FOR IN 2022 FOR BBC, i-D MAGAZINE, AND FOYLES

‘After a couple of weeks, I found myself standing outside the voids in the middle of the night listening for human activity, for any sign of life at all. Voids are flats that have been vacated, that will never be lived in again. But there never were any signs of life. Only the wind whistling through vacant interiors.’

In a condemned tower block in Glasgow, residents slowly trickle away until a young man is left alone with only the angels and devils in his mind for company. Stumbling from one surreal situation to the next, he encounters others on the margins of society, finding friendship and camaraderie wherever it is offered, grappling with who he is and what shape his future might take.

The Voids is an unsparing story of modern-day Britain, told with brilliant flashes of humour and humanity.

Publisher Review

'Reading The Voids is a sensory experience. There is never a word too much, it never lingers. There is tragedy but no melodrama. O'Connor's lightness of touch, the pace, economy, characters ... are all perfect, all harmonious, poetic, but unadorned, even in the blackest of moments. Part of me is still in that high rise or watching the sunlight through the fire exit door at The Satellite. It is beautiful and perfect. I want to say this is a book God would like.' -- Paul Buchanan, The Blue Nile 'At times disturbing, and at others hilarious, there are characters that appear for a page that have haunted me ever since. A wild ride that journeys through the underbelly of our society.' -- Paul McVeigh, author of The Good Son 'A sensory portrait of the city, set in a dizzyingly surreal Glasgow.' -- Katie Goh * i-D Magazine * 'The Voids is a wild, magical, and magnetically mad picaresque ... it had me bellowing with laughter on one page and needing to weep on the next. I tore through it, and it through me. A brilliant debut.' -- Niall Griffiths, author of Sheepshagger and Broken Ghost 'It is rare to discover a book that is simultaneously beautiful and devastating, where characters are frightening to behold but also worthy of compassion. The Voids is a brilliant emotional tapestry woven by a writer of immense talent.' -- Simon Van Booy, author of Night Came with Many Stars 'There are echoes of J.G. Ballard in the setting, and of Don DeLillo in the prose. But The Voids is distinctively and brilliantly Ryan O'Connor's own, rich with precise observations, full of haunting images, and replete with deft vignettes of character, place, and context. This is a novel that confidently generates its own unnerving atmospheres. Extraordinary work.' -- Kevin Power, author of Bad Day in Blackrock 'In the space of a few pages, I was there, right in the world of The Voids, in its chaos and sadness, its life and humour. Melodrama and sentimentality have no place in Ryan O'Connor's writing. Instead he gives us warmth and bleakness, humanity and beauty. The "voids" might be empty but this novel is brimming with feeling and perception.' -- Wendy Erskine, author of Sweet Home 'Poignant, poetic, and compassionate, The Voids is a tender tale of alienation, and the need to escape and, paradoxically, to belong.' -- Lisa Harding, author of Bright Burning Things 'Ryan O'Connor succeeds in conjuring beautiful imagery out of a desperate situation. A whirlwind tour of Glasgow, in the wake of a protagonist plagued by addiction and failure is lifted by the narrative's breakneck pace, and frequent moments of real humour. Reminiscent of James Kelman's work, The Voids should be on everyone's reading list this year.' -- Polly Markham, Golden Hare Books