
Member Reviews

Tony Interruptor is an odd little book. It is highly intellectual and incredibly smart in its humour, playing on words and alluding to artists all around. I am sure I missed many connections. For want of a better word, it is the very definition of highbrow literature.
The starting point is a man who interrupts a jazz concert by asking, "Is this honest? Are we all being honest here?" From there, a TikTok video is created, a hashtag is coined (#TonyInterruptor), and a number of lives are turned upside down by a series of decisions as well as discussions about art, identity, authenticity and improvisation. I think an interest in art and the theory of art helps massively to enjoy this novel, because nothing really happens. People just talk, then talk some more in stream of consciousness style. The characters are close to caricatures, and the final part of the book takes this a step further by juming foreward three years and examining the fundamental changes to several lives caused by one act on one evening.
I enjoyed and appreciated the novel, even though it had no great emotional impact on me, as the characters were just too extreme. I was entertained though - despite my aversion to stream-of-consciousness writing. So, in short, a book that will be loved by the right audience, and might vex anybody else.

I love Nicola Barker, so I'm biased. But even so, this was great fun, and I really hope it gets much deserved awards attention. It's very astute (as you might expect) on inter-generational friction and language barriers/silos/misinterpretation, and it was over all too quickly. Thank you for the opportunity to read it in advance!

What a strange, but engaging read.
I loved the ideas that were touched on, like perceptions of honesty, innovation and improvisation, and even the implied social contract within society, which was compromised with the initial "interruption'.
Something about the fumbling conversations, the half formed thoughts going back and forth, of the characters was compelling, but also made for a bit difficult reading. Like I was eavesdropping on a conversation that was part verbal, part mental and I couldn't quite catch up. Which I ended up enjoying more than expected, given the frustration.

In the middle of a modern jazz session, Tony (the interruptor of the title) stands up and proclaims, ‘Is this honest? Are we all being honest here?’
That’s something a lot of readers will have wondered while sitting through events where you honestly wonder whether anyone is enjoying what is going on, or are they pretending to enjoy it in a slightly pseudo-way, or are they just too timid to walk out? Modern jazz is quite an easy target!
Anyway, the book is about the repercussions of this event, locally in the lives of those who view it or play the instruments, and globally in social media. It is fair to say that a lot of things fall apart as a consequence.
The comedy lies in the way in which this is described so it turns out that even the supporting musicians think that the interruptor has a point! Their trumpet playing leader, Sasha Keyes, does not take kindly to this at first!
Lambert Shore and his daughter India, both members of the audience, are caught up in the debate as is his wife Mallory. They are a buttoned up, slightly arty middle-class family but … are they being honest?
The book is written in an easy comic style with plenty of witty asides. You could easily imagine it being adapted by Radio Four and it may have a serious point about the easy acceptance of the status quo, about literary, artistic and musical snobbery, and possibly even about how we sustain lived reality. It’s not a belly laugh but it is amusing in the way that it exposes the characters and their foibles, revealing the reality beneath.
You’re likely to find yourself in quite a few TonyInterruptor situations after reading this book and that is a recommendation in itself but would you stand up and say so? That’s another issue altogether!

Not for me maybe too intellectual just didn't really like the way it was written but I love the arty cover.

Tony Interrupter by Nicola Barker
When an audience member at an improvised jazz session ( who becomes the Tony of the title), stands up and questions the honesty of the performance, the wheels of reaction and consequence start to turn. We live in a World where such episodes are unlikely to escape filming, posting on line and going viral. So is the case this time. The fallout though is not only on the lives of characters, but also causes them (and us) to reflect more deeply on philosophical questions relating to honesty and freedom. It also highlights some of the differences of opinion which occur between the generations within a household; something which may resonate equally with readers at each end of the age spectrum.
I did find it a challenge keeping up with the different characters at first and the flow of the story. I may benefit from reading a few things back.

4,5
I always enjoy reading Nicola Barker, but I admit it's not always easy and it took me some time to really get into 'TonyInterruptor.' It seemed too highbrow or intellectual to me at first, but once I got used to the style, the original play with words, the smart discussions and rants, etc I was hooked. It reminded me of Nell Zink's latest novel 'Sister Europe' and it was just as funny.
Barker mainly explores art here, its ideas and meaning, and whether it can be honest or real at all. The same with people: are they truthful or are they pussy-footing (my new favorite word :-)? We are all flawed, but does giving in to that make us real and honest?
This was great and interesting, sometimes hilarious and it certainly made me look at the actor Anders Danielsen Lie differently.
Thank you Granta and Netgalley UK for the ARC

Bold, eccentric, and wildly original ⚡🎭. TonyInterruptor is an offbeat, clever novel full of absurd humour, quirky characters, and sharp social commentary. Nicola Barker’s fearless storytelling and playful style create an unpredictable, unforgettable reading experience. I adored the chaotic energy and underlying satire. Perfect for fans of experimental fiction with wit.

Nicola Barker’s H(a)ppy won the 2017 Goldsmith Prize and was longlisted for the 2018 Women’s Prize (in the days before that prize majored on an accessibility criteria). It was a perfect fit for the former – which looks to reward fiction “that breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the novel form” with its narrative and typographical experimentation and was one that according to the partly autofictional narrator of her next book – the quirky novella “I Am Sovereign” “to all intents and purposes destroyed the novel (as a form) for The Author”.
Well here is her next book (to be published later in 2025) a novel and one which is less experimental than H(a)ppy but which has instead a narrative which at times seems deliberately (and self-referentially) freestyle and improvised in a way which reminded me partly of Isabel Waidner (another Goldsmith winner) and partly of Helen Oyeyemi (a past Goldsmith shortlistee and judge).
It opens with an unknown man interrupting a live music performance – an “improvisational jazz show in a moderately affluent southern English cathedral town” (a fictionalised version of Canterbury) saying “Is this honest? Are we are all being honest here”. Backstage – Sasha Keyes, a trumpet player whose ensemble was playing, has a “heated post-performance exchange” with Fi Kinebuchi (his ex-wife, still in his band, music lecturer at the nearby college) and sarcastically christens the man as TonyInterruptor.
A film of the incident is captured and uploaded by a teenage girl in the audience (India Shore) and a fellow band member adds the hashtag #TonyInterruptor which then goes viral.
From there we spend much of our time with the Shore family – father Lambert (a professor of archaeology at the same university as Fi), his second wife (India’s stepmum) Mallory and their 8 year old, special needs daughter Gunn, as Lambert and Mallory bicker over a conceptual art piece the former is planning involving Fi – and as India despairs in teenage daughter fashion over her parents inability to understand new social media concepts (this latter part is at times amusing but I would say far from original). We also meet the interruptor – real and John Lincoln Braithwaite who appears to spend his time mainly contemplating the fall of light and importance of silence and borrowing library books (and apparently looks like Andrew Danielsen Lie – apparently an actor).
A later section is set 3 years later brings many of the characters together in the artistic and personal aftermath of the first part – Braithwaite with a very oddly if not inappropriately voiced (by Barker) Francophone African ex-nun who works as a registrar in an Parisian art gallery with a video installation art produced by Shore and Kinebuchi around the idea of interruption; India and Lambert at a concert Sasha and his ensemble are giving to launch a new concept album – named after Mallory (who left home in the immediate fall out of the original concert).
At one stage the Tonyinterruptor name is either claimed to be a song by the post punk band The Fall (whose lead singer provides an epitaph) or from Martin Amis’s “Lionel Asbo”. I find it hard to think of many literary novels that less appeal than late-Amis although even that does not give me the same level of dread as “improvisational jazz” or “post punk” or “conceptual art” which is all by way of saying this was not a novel that really worked for me at all.

I'm afraid I found this difficult to read - the whole text was full of interruptions! I'm sure the digressions are relevant and interesting, but I found they got in the way of the narrative for me. I'm sure that many will love this thought - it will probably be a 'marmite' book.

“Engage with the true... true substance of the thing? Stop framing everything in terms of ART and IDEAS and MEANING, stop communicating only in GESTURES and SYMBOLS, stop always making everything so ... so INTELLECTUAL, SO META, and just... just ... for once in your life risk being real?”
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In a way this quote sums up this book perfectly. It is amusing in parts, the gentle skewering of middle class pretensions around art and culture. It is also I guess pretty smart, perhaps bordering on pretentious?
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Truth be told, I didn’t get it. Perhaps I’m simply not au fait with this world or fully understanding the concepts outlaid at times in wittily written sentences. It felt like being on the outside of an in-joke. An in-joke from the cool group of kids at school, who like dissecting in infinitesimal ways language, high art and perpetually on the hunt for authenticity.
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Perhaps it’s those people that the book is gently mocking, a fact that didn’t particularly land with me. It’s all very clever and knowing, a wink and nod. I enjoyed Barker’s quality of writing, and there were parts that did make me chuckle. This just left me a bit cold, alongside adolescent flashbacks of never quite fitting in with the arty cool kids at school.

I’m new to Nicola Barker, so this was a bit of an experiment. A very worthwhile one as it turned out. Intriguing characters and situations, gorgeous prose, and an oh so true reflection on the inside of the the head commentary that all of us have going on as we stumble through life, navigating work, culture, relationships and family. Not for those who want a conventional linear narrative, but perfect if you value novels that resonate long after the reading.

This was the first book by Nicola Barker that I have read, and I'm still not completely sure what I think of it. Yes, the writing is clever and the premise is philosophical,. but I never really got invested in the story. I struggled to like any of the characters and found the going tedious at times. There were big chunks of dialogue with no plot movement and a couple of times I almost gave up before I got there in the end.
Maybe this one wasn't for me and I might try another of hers at some point.
Thanks to NetGalley for a free e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

I loved the set up of this book and the writing is entertaining and eloquent. However the premise felt a little laboured at times and I lost interest in the threads. Modern and chaotic, the book will appeal to readers who enjoy literature that shares challenging conversations.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to review this book.

I will be honest here because, can we be honest? Yes. we can.
This is a fun read which is layered, rich, and full of cultural references.
There is a jazz concert in the beginning, and then something happens, and that changes everything.
Cleverly written with interesting and competent prose.

An indulgent and comic exploration of the oddities of modern society! Loved it!
TonyInterruptor as yet unnamed stands up in the middle of the gig and asks the question: ‘Is this honest? Are we all being honest here?’
The man then points to the trumpet player, Sasha Keyes, and finishes his disruption by commenting, almost pityingly 'You, especially'. The interruption takes people by surprise, this man doesn't appear to be your ordinary heckler.
This disruption is caught on video, posted on social media and goes viral. The book 'TonyInterrupter', is the fall out of the disruption - the tussle and tumble of the characters that try to each understand themselves and each other in the ensuing aftermath.
Nicola Barker has such fun with her subjects, twisting their situations and rollicking in their discomfort. I won't list all the characters, because much of the enjoyment is the reveal of each new person and how they are connected through this event. But to Sasha Keyes who is singled out by the Interrupter, there is this delightful description from the view of his Manager:
'She feels now - and has always felt - that Sasha is an extremely unpredictable and intermittently vicious clinically obese 17-year-old Rottweiler with mesmerizingly yellow teeth and advance arthritis living inside the body of an inordinately pale and skinny 45-year-old suit model with a powerful jaw, giant hands and Supermanstyle spectacles (whose only real purpose, surely, are to be hurled off during a life-and-death crisis). '
At first I puzzled about how this would look, but by reading on, Sasha displays himself and the embodiment of his inner unpredictable Rottweiler leaps from the page.
While I thought the characters were great fun, I really enjoyed the exploration of so many oddities of our modern society. They are not deeply analysed but lightly played upon, and the question is clearly established - why do these oddities exist, and how did they become so profound? What is authenticity and originality in music... or art? Do the origins of a hashtag matter? In a world of spontaneous videos who is the owner of the content? How should one handle disgrace in the face of the media? And with everything in the world being comically odd, why do we try and hold our human forms rigidly to some societal expectations and not others?
Nicola Barker has a different way of looking at the world which is full of punch and relish. Smiling at one pertinent observation, and trying to pause to enjoy, you are careened into another. It is a roller coaster. And sadly, in my view, over too quickly. She is a unique voice!
I demolished this book in just over two days. It has been 18 years since I finished 'Darkmans' and I am now realising that it is too long and I'll certainly be seeking out her other books. Thank you so much #NetGalley and #GrantaBooks!

I'm afraid I only pressed on with this book because it was relatively short.
The phrase 'art for arts sake' kept running through my mind as I read.
I enjoy books with great characters and a plot, so this really wasn't for me, despite being a qualified English Teacher. It really was too literary for me. It raised the occasional smile but no real enjoyment.
Thanks to NetGalley the author and publisher for the opportunity to read an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I found the premise of "TonyInterruptor" to be fascinating. The protagonist seeks to question honesty and integrity in how we live our lives, which results in some profound self-reflections and learnings by the other main characters. I read this just after having a conversation with a colleague at a charity I volunteer for, about how we always say we are "fine" or "good" but that doesn't reflect the hidden depths or challenges that we have running through our lives - which led to a much deeper conversation and connection. Authenticity in a world that is fast-moving with social media, and a multitude of connections (some closer than others) is something to think about!
This was my first book by Nicola Barker and I would read others of hers as I enjoyed this one.
Thanks to Nicola Barker, Granta Books and NetGalley for this ARC in return for an honest review.

An extremely erudite book. One that I can imagine English Literature undergraduates discussing until the early hours.
I enoyed some of the badinage, but generally it was over my head.
Buy it if you enjoy arguing minor points of meaning of words and phrases, as it is common nowadays, and are always using google on your mobile phone to check everything that someone says.
Bang up to date with the arguments. Interesting , but not for my taste particularly nice charcters.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

A wryly funny novel in which a man who interrupts a concert inadvertently becomes a social media sensation and the lives of those he touches begin to unravel. This is smart, dry as a bone and gorgeous. I loved it.