A teenager — whose only means of escape is literature — is slowly ground down by the unwanted attentions and creeping psychopathy of a paramilitary many years her senior. This is the secret state, a place where gossip and hearsay are weaponised methods of control, contained in a novel written with both a sad humour and a certain kind of fury.
This week's book is Anna Burns's Milkman and we'll be meeting at The Fletcher Moss on William Street in Didsbury.