A Shock is Keith Ridgway’s latest (not-exactly-a) novel (not-exactly-a-short-story-collection). In nine chapters his London based characters pop up in each other’s lives, sometimes peripherally, sometimes centrally, and the sections layer and themes build and it feels like both traditional and new storytelling. At the heart of Ridgway’s writing is his astonishing skill writing people who breathe on the pages. He digs beneath surfaces and reveals the interesting quirky parts of being human we all have. His dialogue is naturalistic, full of things unsaid, pauses and tangents. He takes a typical setting – the pub – and conjures it all so vividly, the boring mate, the pub weirdo, a shift in mood. People in the pub tell each other tales which echo those in A Shock. One story they make up cannot be told. “It untells itself.” Which is exactly the kind of headfuck A Shock offers.

There’s a wonderfully awkward exploration of racism within a long-standing friendship, the loneliness and sadness of a widow, gay sex and drugs, rented flats, and more rodents than I’m comfortable with. People go missing or are lost or hidden. The reader is gifted an intimate view and it’s all superb.
“It was a blank-sky day, all of London suspended in a bowl of hot milk, her headache spooning through the sludge of her brain, her eyes almost closed, a taste in her mouth of the metal in the air and the shit in the metal and the blood in the shit.” I mean, how fucking amazing is that?

The beginning story is of a widow listening to a party next door, the last story is from the party itself. There are loops and circles and echoes throughout this intriguing book. It’s a witty and smart and human and dazzling read and I think Ridgway is a rare genius. This is storytelling to be excited by. What a treat to read something so cleverly crafted that it immediately demands to be reread and paid attention to.

I have preferred the author’s other books and just couldn’t get a hold on what was going on in this one. A slippery story doesn’t have to be a bad thing but I admit I would struggle to know how to recommend it or speak about it to readers.

A set of interlinked stories, with a cast of diverse and compelling characters, exploring the untold stories of modern London. Ridgeway has a way of getting under the skin of his characters, and indeed into their heads and in doing so brings his readers on a strange, often complex but always rewarding journey.

Absolutely superb; precisely what I want to be reading right now. Sadly, I read it, but may do so again very soon. Ridgway's best work, and hopefully on the Booker longlist next week (although probably not, judging by recent calamitous picks; but no matter, sure on the Goldsmith's shortlist either way). I will write a much more extensive review at some point -- for now, thanks to the author and good luck.

Very interesting read, too me quite a while to get into the style, had to re read a few chapters. When it falls into place its witty, insightful and carefully planned. The characters and situations are very believable and well observed its quite sobering to see these traits described, the world is changing under our nose. Not read anything from this author before but will now seek out previous books. Thank you #NetGalley for the copy.

A Shock by Keith Ridgway is a powerful collection of stories set in London featuring a cast of diverse and unique characters each facing a situation or predicament that becomes a minor drama. These stories are hugely entertaining; wonderfully written and very cleverly constructed.

Will look out for more from this author for sure.

“Perhaps it should have started this way. Perhaps it does”.

The story navigates the fringes of London society, with a big LGBTQ+ focus and surface level discussions on race, drug-use and gentrification. A lot of the insights come from what isn’t said, as opposed to blatant information bites.

An incredible piece of writing delivered through a sobering look at London life. The novel goes full circle in a ~non-linear~ time frame that is equally refreshing and confusing. The character's become caught up in one another's lives and seamlessly flow between story lines. The story is representative of life and as such, offers pages of monotonous drivel.

The writing caught me off guard and the first chapter was tedious. Throughout the novel are ridiculously obvious moments, for example “that is the end of the phone call”. It’s so simple. Yet, the book itself has a lot of hidden depths, so persistence pays off here. It's not the most exciting short story, but its very real and and more of an experience than a book.

At times, the writing a stream of flowing consciousness, with multiple pages missing a single full stop. Speech marks don’t exist - much like in Three Rooms by Jo Hamya - but it seems almost natural, blending into the protagonists thoughts. The descriptive language and visual sex scenes leave the reader feeling like an accidental voyeur but are frequent enough to quickly adapt to.

This isn’t my genre, but a genuine masterpiece in it’s own right. I’m struggling to do the book justice in a review but whilst I feel mixed on the book, overall, I recommend.

I found this a peculiar and unsettling book, but one that was nevertheless satisfying. I enjoyed the characters, the ebb and flow of their lives and the narrative and, most importantly, the way the city comes to life.

A grimy, witty prod at London’s underbelly.

A Shock peels back London’s civilized veneer to gnaw at the liminal spaces beneath. A cavity in a party wall allows a woman to spy on her neighbours, a pizza restaurant’s bin area attracts rats that break into a couple’s kitchen, a wardrobe hides the erotic evidence of a flat’s former occupants, an attic provides a hiding place for a marooned plumber’s mate, a pub skirting board conceals the tunnel excavated by a mouse called Troubadour Anx.

This non-novel exposes all the loosely connected characters’ insecurities, neuroses and psychoses.

With razor-sharp dialogue, pithy turns of phrase and a similar structure to Ridgway’s last book (eight years ago), Hawthorn and Child, A Shock confirms the author’s status as an inventive and skilled storyteller of the peripheral world.

My thanks to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for the ARC.

A Shock is a series of really a series of slice-of-life vignettes, loosely connected by place and/or character. There’s no real narrative drive to these, save for a framing device in the novel’s opening and closing sections.

This means that each vignette, or distinct short story, let’s call them, has to stand very much on its own merits. Fortunately, for the most part these are not inconsiderable. They’re extremely well written and there’s some fantastic character moments here. From the unnamed (I think) widow in the first story to Stan and Maria, Gary and Harry, most of the character in the book are written with love and care and come popping vividly off the page. There are a couple of weaker links, of course, but they’re by and large the exception that proves the rule.

What A Shock is trying to do, I believe, is offer a snapshot of life in modern London, making it in a way a close cousin to Fiona Mozley’s Hot Stew. It’s not so much a ‘state of the nation’ novel as one that attempts to grasp with small moments of intimacy and character interaction. Not that it doesn’t attempt to engage with the ‘big’ issues of modern life — of race, work, poverty, sexuality and gender. It does, although I feel with rather mixed success. Some of the treatment of these issues feels rather perfunctory at times. More than once I got the feeling it is striving to be a modern White Teeth and there are points where it approaches it but ultimately it lacks Zadie Smith’s compassionate generosity of spirit.

But this is perhaps the point. A Shock is about the dislocation of modern life, particularly of modern city life. It’s about the (literal) walls we put up between each other. This is a valid and interesting point but it did mean that I found the characters of the novel to be a little cold, a little cynical, a little off-putting. I couldn’t say that there was anyone I particularly warmed to or wanted to learn more about — and this was brought home when these characters re-occur in the stories of others. I kept feeling as if I should feel more of a thrill of excitement and recognition than I actually did.

Not that there aren’t pleasures in the novel. There’s a nice variation in the individual micro-narratives and some of the writing is very beautiful indeed. Ridgway offers us original and highly perceptive character studies for the most part and there are even some nice digressions away from the overall tone of social realism and into something almost approaching surrealistic fantasy. I loved the all-too short asides into the world of the wonderfully named Troubadour Anx and her brother Altar Phen, the mice who lurk in the wainscotting of a pub. There was almost something Martin Millar-esque about them and I could happily stood to have spent a little more time in their company.

Ultimately, A Shock suffers a little from a lack of an overall narrative which makes it rather flat and linear as a reading experience but nevertheless there is still much to enjoy here in the crisp and original characterisation and the long sequences of elegant and evocative prose.

For me, this feels like an almost impossible book to review. To try to provide any form of synopsis (as I usually would) is to completely destroy the whole purpose of this novel – so I suggest you stick with the blurb and go from there.

I’ve not read anything by this author before, and whilst I hear Hawthorn and Child was an absolute masterpiece, it’s not crossed my bookshelf. Having read this, which I understand is in a similar vein, that situation certainly won’t be changing.

Personally, I did not enjoy this book but I want to make it very clear this an entirely personal response. It’s not that I thought it was poorly written, or had nothing enchanting about it (in fact, some parts were stunningly beautiful), but simply that it didn’t work for me. In much the same way that some people could happily live on tuna, and I feel like gagging when someone mentions it. We all have our things; this, sadly, is not one of mine.

Ultimately, it felt pretentious, pointless and just a long-winded meander in to nothingness. There was nothing to “enjoy” as such, as nothing happens and there are far more questions left unanswered than anything that comes to a conclusion.

I hold my hands up – I didn’t “get” it. For those that do, I have no doubt you will wax lyrical about it and have a myriad of things to say that prove me wrong. That’s brilliant, honestly. I have no doubt on some levels the book deserves it, but I’m just glad I’ve finished reading it and can move on to something else.

Usually, a book that made me feel like this would get a 1 star; however, I am very well aware that I would be penalizing the author purely because this was not my thing. That strikes me as grossly unfair as there is nothing “wrong” with this. Horses for courses and all that.

It's been 8 years since Hawthorn & Child, Keith Ridgway's last book, which was rightly celebrated. A Shock is just as good. It's a London novel and much more, and a short novel that is much more than the sum of its interlocking parts. It's moving, funny, startling, unnerving, and shocking. The various, interdependent stories come together satisfyingly but leaving as much open as closed, as is signalled towards the beginning of the book - "all stories are the same story, and here I am, the leftover part, the unresolved plot, the loose end." It's not dystopian in any recognisable sense but captures the unsettling, dysfunctional character of the contemporary world better than most dystopian novels. I can't imaging a better novel being published this year.

<i>"Get out of London. Which is only a fraction of the world. You know? A tiny dense little fraction. It is not the full extent of things. There is fresh air. There is a cold drink of water."</i>

I'm going to write a fairly minimalist review of this because I think this is the kind of book where the less you know about it, the better (so quite frankly I wouldn't recommend reading this review, or ANY review!). Keith Ridgway is one of my favourite writers, and <i>Hawthorn & Child</i> is just an absolutely monumental book for me, which I am now going to go back and reread. The good news is, for fans of <i>Hawthorn and Child</i> or even <i>Animals</i>, <i>A Shock</i> continues in the same vein. Fragmented novel, linked collection, whatever, who cares!

This book has:
- The city of London and its isolation. Connection and disconnection. Class division. Hustlers. I was reminded often of Kiare Ladner's <i>Nightshift</i>
- DEATH. It's what the book's title is a reference to: <i> "May your death come as a shock to you, he'd say."</i>
- Disappearances, vanishing. The power to vanish completely.
- Dreams. This book is SUCH a good example of why yes, Virginia, dream sequences CAN and DO work in fiction (only when done well and purposefully though!)
- Buildings. The merging of humans with buildings. This is a BIG theme, and ties in with the other theme of being trapped in the mind, being trapped in general. Borders. Containment. And in contrast with this, we have the feeling of bursting free, of entering "<i>a whole amazing openness.</i>"
- Rats, mice. Dirtiness, filth. The unseen, the unspoken
- The idea of a book 'speaking' to a reader. The way <i>A Shock</i> itself does this (in one or two chillingly striking sentences) was REALLY, REALLY interesting to me.
- Sexuality, desire, perversity
- Drugs, madness. God, some of the description of meth drug binges in this made me feel PANICKY. Being trapped in the mind.
- Routine. Everyday life. A sense of apocalyptic doom about the future.

This book was so good, I didn't want it to finish. It's is fully of mystery, and unresolved questions, and deeply unsettling and tense scenarios. I love, love, love the punchy short rhythmic sentences, and the way they buildbuildbuild into something terrifying. I wanted to ration the chapters out. I loved it, and I'm definitely going to read it again. So many good moments. The monologue about the cave is one I am never, ever going to forget. The story about the fifth room. The story about the pigeon in the roof. The eyeball in the wall. The dialogue - God, the dialogue is so good.

In summary, with this book Ridgway cements himself as an absolute legend. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC.

<i>You are running away from your own story. You are bitter and lonely and terrified that you will be like this for the rest of your life.

A person. Love. Death. It is stupid. It is barely a story. It is not a story. It is not a story.

Her life was smaller than a bus. She stopped herself then. Stupid. But still. Clouds are very fucking big. That's the point.

I would rather a shock, than a terror, you know? A long decline.

Maybe too soon, but everything is too soon. Today is too soon. Life is too soon.

He fell asleep and dreamed of dying at the bottom of the sea, part of the world at last, part of its mulch and its mess, its waste matter, its sag and decomposition, living forever in the soil of the future, living forever like a slice of what happened.</i>