The Coward
- 7 Jul 2022
- 9781838851545
- £9.99
- 320 pp
- 129×198mm
- 1 Jul 2021
- 9781838851552
- £7.99
- 320 pp
- 1 Jul 2021
- 9781838851576
- £20.99
- 9 hrs 6 min
In a few words
A startling and intimate debut novel which explores masculinity, family, disability and love as an estranged father and son struggle to reconcile
In a few words
A startling and intimate debut novel which explores masculinity, family, disability and love as an estranged father and son struggle to reconcile
In a few words
A startling and intimate novel which explores masculinity, family, disability and love as an estranged father and son struggle to reconcile
Sings from its first lines . . . unbearably poignant . . . a truly uplifting emotional journey; a tender, wise, brutally funny novel
Written with insight and savage wit . . . it is uplifting because McGinnis is a realist who never tries to sweeten the bitter experience of learning to navigate life in a wheelchair. His characters are vivid and impossible to forget, and he has an underlying optimism about the various ways in which muddled lives shake down and settle into something better
Sings from its first lines . . . unbearably poignant . . . a truly uplifting emotional journey; a tender, wise, brutally funny novel
Written with insight and savage wit . . . it is uplifting because McGinnis is a realist who never tries to sweeten the bitter experience of learning to navigate life in a wheelchair. His characters are vivid and impossible to forget, and he has an underlying optimism about the various ways in which muddled lives shake down and settle into something better
Sings from its first lines . . . unbearably poignant . . . a truly uplifting emotional journey; a tender, wise, brutally funny novel
Written with insight and savage wit . . . it is uplifting because McGinnis is a realist who never tries to sweeten the bitter experience of learning to navigate life in a wheelchair. His characters are vivid and impossible to forget, and he has an underlying optimism about the various ways in which muddled lives shake down and settle into something better
More about
the book
A BBC TWO BETWEEN THE COVERS BOOK CLUB PICK
After a car accident Jarred discovers he’ll never walk again. Confined to a ‘giant roller-skate’, he finds himself with neither money nor job, a shoplifting habit, an addiction to painkillers and strangers treating him like he’s an idiot. Worse still, he’s forced to live back home with his estranged father.
Trying to piece himself together, Jarred comes to realise that things don’t have to stay broken after all. The Coward is about hurt and forgiveness, how the world treats disabled people, and how we write and rewrite the stories we tell ourselves about our lives – and try to find a happy ending.
More about
the book
A BBC TWO BETWEEN THE COVERS BOOK CLUB PICK
After a car accident Jarred discovers he’ll never walk again. Confined to a ‘giant roller-skate’, he finds himself with neither money nor job, a shoplifting habit, an addiction to painkillers and strangers treating him like he’s an idiot. Worse still, he’s forced to live back home with his estranged father.
Trying to piece himself together, Jarred comes to realise that things don’t have to stay broken after all. The Coward is about hurt and forgiveness, how the world treats disabled people, and how we write and rewrite the stories we tell ourselves about our lives – and try to find a happy ending.
More about
the book
A BBC TWO BETWEEN THE COVERS BOOK CLUB PICK
Question: What’s worse than being in a wheelchair?
Answer: Being a fuck-up in a wheelchair.
After a car accident Jarred discovers he’ll never walk again. Confined to a ‘giant roller-skate’, he finds himself with neither money nor job. Worse still, he’s forced to live back home with the father he hasn’t spoken to in ten years.
Add in a shoplifting habit, an addiction to painkillers and the fact that total strangers now treat him like he’s an idiot, it’s a recipe for self-destruction. How can he stop himself careering out of control?
As he tries to piece his life together again, he looks back over his past – the tragedy that blasted his family apart, why he ran away, the damage he’s caused himself and others – and starts to wonder whether, maybe, things don’t always have to stay broken after all.
The Coward is about hurt and forgiveness. It’s about how the world treats disabled people. And it’s about how we write and rewrite the stories we tell ourselves about our lives – and try to find a happy ending.
This beautiful book is a testament to the way people can, in spite of everything, reforge shattered emotional bonds and repair seemingly doomed relationships. You won’t find a more uplifting read in these dark times
Irvine Welsh
Black comedy alternates with fragile tenderness in this vivid and fiercely honest novel
Laceratingly funny, beautiful and true, true, true – right into its very human and very twisted heart. Read this book
A.l. Kennedy
Visceral yet immensely witty . . . The sections describing the immediate aftermath of the crash are incredibly powerful
This beautiful book is a testament to the way people can, in spite of everything, reforge shattered emotional bonds and repair seemingly doomed relationships. You won’t find a more uplifting read in these dark times
Irvine Welsh
Black comedy alternates with fragile tenderness in this vivid and fiercely honest novel
Laceratingly funny, beautiful and true, true, true – right into its very human and very twisted heart. Read this book
A.l. Kennedy
Visceral yet immensely witty . . . The sections describing the immediate aftermath of the crash are incredibly powerful
This beautiful book is a testament to the way people can, in spite of everything, reforge shattered emotional bonds and repair seemingly doomed relationships. You won’t find a more uplifting read in these dark times
Irvine Welsh
Black comedy alternates with fragile tenderness in this vivid and fiercely honest novel
Laceratingly funny, beautiful and true, true, true – right into its very human and very twisted heart. Read this book
A.l. Kennedy
Visceral yet immensely witty . . . The sections describing the immediate aftermath of the crash are incredibly powerful
Jarred McGinnis
View profileJarred McGinnis is the co-founder of The Special Relationship, which was chosen for the British Council’s International Literature Showcase. His short fiction has been commissioned for BBC Radio 4 and appeared in literary journals in the UK, Canada, USA and Ireland. He is an Associate Writer for Spread the Word, a fellow of the London Library’s Emerging Writer Programme and a Writer-in-Residence for First Story. He also has a PhD in Artificial Intelligence, but mostly he inspires the able-bodied by using public transport and taking his daughters to the playground.
@JarredMcGinnis | jarredmcginnis.com
Jarred McGinnis
View profileJarred McGinnis is the co-founder of The Special Relationship, which was chosen for the British Council’s International Literature Showcase. His short fiction has been commissioned for BBC Radio 4 and appeared in literary journals in the UK, Canada, USA and Ireland. He is an Associate Writer for Spread the Word, a fellow of the London Library’s Emerging Writer Programme and a Writer-in-Residence for First Story. He also has a PhD in Artificial Intelligence, but mostly he inspires the able-bodied by using public transport and taking his daughters to the playground.
@JarredMcGinnis | jarredmcginnis.com
Jarred McGinnis
View profileJarred McGinnis is the co-founder of The Special Relationship, which was chosen for the British Council’s International Literature Showcase. His short fiction has been commissioned for BBC Radio 4 and appeared in literary journals in the UK, Canada, USA and Ireland. He is an Associate Writer for Spread the Word, a fellow of the London Library’s Emerging Writer Programme and a Writer-in-Residence for First Story. He also has a PhD in Artificial Intelligence, but mostly he inspires the able-bodied by using public transport and taking his daughters to the playground.
@JarredMcGinnis | jarredmcginnis.com
