Berg - Ann Quin

Berg by Ann Quin / ISBN 9781911508540 / 168-page paperback from And Other Stories

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“A man called Berg, who changed his name to Greb, came to a seaside town intending to kill his father. . .”

"Progressing with the potency of a fever dream, this reissue invites readers to discover Quin’s remarkable voice." ―TANK Magazine

"Rare enough is a book that begins by stating its intention―rarer still one that proceeds to do seemingly everything it can to avoid following the path its intention has laid." ―Danielle Dutton, Literary Hub

"The prose that makes Quin’s novel so dazzling 55 years later. The language of her book lurches in unexpected directions, fishtailing wildly from the dark to the erotic to the violent to the insanely funny." ―Shane Anderson, The Nation

So begins Ann Quin’s madcap frolic with sinister undertones, a debut “so staggeringly superior to most you’ll never forget it” (The Guardian). Alistair Berg hears where his father, who has been absent from his life since his infancy, is living. Without revealing his identity, Berg takes a room next to the one where his father and father’s mistress are lodging and he starts to plot his father’s elimination. Seduction and violence follow, though not quite as Berg intends, with Quin lending the proceedings a delightful absurdist humor.

Anarchic, heady, dark, Berg is Quin’s masterpiece, a classic of post-war avant-garde British writing, and now finally back in print after much demand.