In the Approaches

In the Approaches
Nicola Barker

Nicola Barker’s readers are primed to expect surprises, but her tenth novel delivers mind-meld on a metaphysical scale. From quiet beginnings in the picturesque English seaside enclave of Pett Level, ‘In The Approaches’ ultimately constructs its own anarchic city-state on the previously undiscovered common ground between G.K. Chesterton and Philip K. Dick. On the one hand, this is an old-fashioned romantic comedy of fused buttocks, shrunken heads and Irish-Aboriginal saints; on the other it’s Barker’s wildest and most haunting book since 2007’s Booker Prize-shortlisted ‘Darkmans’.Following previous celebrations of the enduring allure of the posted letter (’Burley Cross Postbox Theft’) and the pre-lapsarian innocence of pre-Twitter celebrity (Booker-longlisted ‘The Yips’), this concluding instalment of Barker’s subliminally affiliated ‘digital trilogy’ imagines a basis for the internet in Catholic theology. Set in a 1984 which seems almost as distantly located in the past as Orwell’s was in the future, ‘In the Approaches’ offers a captivating glimpse of something more shocking than any dystopia – the possibility of faith.

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Copyright (#ubbb81443-c2ca-5d78-906f-c07893a79e0a)

Fourth Estate

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This eBook edition first published in Great Britain by Fourth Estate in 2014

Copyright © Nicola Barker 2014

Nicola Barker asserts the moral right to

be identified as the author of this work

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available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007583706

Ebook Edition © June 2014 ISBN: 9780007583713

Version 2015-03-31

Contents

Cover (#u6d09db31-bc3a-5458-b356-4eb24018b84b)

Title Page (#ulink_d5d0ce87-a3f7-56d2-8558-dd642eded80b)

Copyright (#ulink_1d57733b-93dd-561d-93a1-2b39fce73673)

Dedication (#ulink_5a2e7679-277d-56e6-bda5-8fe47c0a69c7)

1 Miss Carla Hahn (#ulink_67cabd37-5e66-54f1-a0ed-506e0e6a7d21)

2 Mr Franklin D. Huff (#ulink_1289e9d2-0871-5991-8b36-4b8d55a3aec7)

3 Miss Carla Hahn (#ulink_8f0f5195-ea18-5563-bf5d-3734fa1105d5)

4 Mr Franklin D. Huff (#ulink_3cd69b63-ebe4-546a-915b-6af49ec2b7fb)

5 Miss Carla Hahn (#ulink_6410458a-a7ec-5c8e-b3e4-befead4a0af9)

6 Teobaldo (#ulink_3fd11579-930c-557c-b743-9378baf0ba7f)

7 Mr Franklin D. Huff (#ulink_f0fe18b1-d0b3-54c9-98ca-51a5c61873ae)

8 Miss Carla Hahn (#ulink_e7c4b2fc-faf1-507c-bec7-86dcd2553509)

9 Mr Franklin D. Huff (#ulink_d3fc3535-ba7b-53ad-bb4b-fb031503601c)

10 Miss Carla Hahn (#ulink_95ebe723-0748-5462-9913-6070ae758f72)

11 Mr Clifford Bickerton (#ulink_e39bb9d7-3982-5d25-9c26-d535f476c1c8)

12 Mr Franklin D. Huff (#ulink_e6585b8c-26e5-58f4-8452-6a9a949ca020)

13 Miss Carla Hahn (#ulink_dfc9fb00-c207-562a-b1eb-d39973d73fb9)

14 Teobaldo (#litres_trial_promo)

15 Mr Franklin D. Huff (#litres_trial_promo)

16 Miss Carla Hahn (#litres_trial_promo)

17 Mr Franklin D. Huff (#litres_trial_promo)

18 Miss Carla Hahn (#litres_trial_promo)

19 Mr Franklin D. Huff (#litres_trial_promo)

20 Teobaldo (#litres_trial_promo)

21 Miss Carla Hahn (#litres_trial_promo)

22 Mr Clifford Bickerton (#litres_trial_promo)

23 Mr Franklin D. Huff

24 Miss Carla Hahn

25 Mr Franklin D. Huff

26 Teobaldo (#litres_trial_promo)