The debut novel from Saba Sams — winner of the BBC National Short Story Award and the Edge Hill Prize, and hailed by Vogue as Britain's brightest debut novelist.
Jules has spent years orbiting Gunk, the sticky-floored Brighton nightclub owned by her ex-husband Leon. It is a place of late nights, cheap drinks, and people passing through on their way to somewhere else.
Then Nim arrives — young, magnetic, and pregnant. What follows is a story about the families we are given and the ones we build for ourselves, about desire and jealousy and the fierce, complicated pull of motherhood.
Raw and tender in equal measure, Gunk confirms Saba Sams as one of the most exciting voices in contemporary British fiction.
Praise
“Sams is Britain's brightest debut novelist.” — Vogue
“Had me hooked.” — Guardian
“Raw, powerful and beautiful.” — Observer
“A striking and special book.” — Oisín McKenna
About the author
Saba Sams is the author of the story collection Send Nudes, which won the BBC National Short Story Award and the Edge Hill Short Story Prize, and was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. She was named one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists. Gunk is her first novel.
Perfect for readers of
Megan Nolan, Eliza Clark, Sally Rooney, Naoise Dolan, and anyone drawn to sharp, unsentimental fiction about young women and modern life.
