Idio-pathy
IDIOPATHY (n): A disease of unknown origin and cause.
In his first novel, Sam Byers skilfully and cheerfully —but also with bone-crushing language—the footsteps of the great Anglo-Saxon tradition of humour and emerges as the freshest and most promising talent of the younger generation of British writers.
In his first novel, Sam Byers skilfully and cheerfully —but also with bone-crushing language—the footsteps of the great Anglo-Saxon tradition of humour and emerges as the freshest and most promising talent of the younger generation of British writers.
Catherine and Daniel have split up. In their thirties, they are each struggling separately with the struggles of their age and the surrealism of modern life: Catherine, depressed and cynical, is trying to recover from the break-up, trapped in a city and a job she undoubtedly hates, whilst Daniel is far from certain whether his new relationship and his job truly satisfy him. Things take a new turn when an old friend of theirs, Nathan, reappears on the scene after a year and a half in a psychiatric clinic, and bearing the added burden of a mother who, in the meantime, has become the author of an autobiographical bestseller based on his own troubled journey, and a popular social media personality under the pseudonym ‘Mum Courage’. Against the backdrop of a mysterious cattle epidemic spreading across England, the three friends will attempt to solve their own mysteries, offering delightful pages of witty satire on contemporary reality and a ruthless examination of the pathology of a generation wavering between conservatism and scepticism, as well as the human condition regardless of age.
In Idiopathy, his first novel, Sam Byers skilfully and cheerfully —but also with bone-crushing language—the footsteps of the great Anglo-Saxon tradition of humour and emerges as the freshest and most promising talent of the younger generation of British writers.
Sam Byers is a nominee for the Costa Book Award.
To date, Sam Byers’s debut novel, Idiopathy, has been translated or is being translated into 12 languages.
The Telegraph newspaper included the author among the five new fiction writers of 2013 to watch out for.
The British bookshop chain Waterstones recommends Idiopathy as one of the eleven best debut novels of 2013.
- Pages: 376
- ISBN: 978-960-572-012-4
- Publication: 2013
- Dimensions: 13,3 x 20,5 εκ.
- Categories: Literature, eBooks, Foreign Literature
From the very first pages, Byers’ satirical streak is evident, drawing on the finest moments of Malcolm Bradbury (The Man Who Was History), Hanif Kureishi (My Beautiful Laundrette), Martin Amis (London Fields) or even Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting), except that Byers, a child of the age of Twitter, Facebook and the rapid circulation of news and information, creates characters with a corresponding pathology.
– Argyro Mantoglou, bookpress.gr‘Idio-pathy’ is a highly commendable psychological drama of repressed emotions, thwarted desires and inevitable compromises. It is also an equally commendable debut novel, which tackles what is often referred to as the ‘human condition’—that is, the individual’s inner conflict during emotional (but also romantic, professional or biological) coming of age.
– Akis Papantonis, Eφημερίδα των ΣυντακτώνSam Byers
Sam Byers was born in 1979. He holds a Master’s degree in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia, and his work has been published in the literary magazines Granta, Tank and Blank Pages. He is a regular book reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement (TLS). Idio-pathy is his first novel.
