Read all about it: New Statesman Books of the Year 2012

To see Malarky show up in The New Statesman, a publication I am long familiar with from my London and Dublin days and my lifelong cultural left inclinations, was a big surprise will hereby ever be referred to as my Jimmy Knapp moment. I may not get another Jimmy Knapp moment, hence it was special. (I am sure there will be further surprises as my knitting and plumbing disasters appear steadfast and always surprise me.)

To sit beside Deborah Levy’s Swimming Home (published by the fine and progressive And Other Stories) only solidified this as my Jimmy Knapp moment.

Jenny Diski, who je remercie mille fois, wrote the following:

Anakana Schofield’s Malarky (Biblioasis, $19.95) and Deborah Levy’s Swimming Home (And Other Stories, £7.99) are quite different novels, each with their own notable style and imaginative power. Good new novels are rare and here are two of them. Diana Souhami’s Murder at Wrotham Hill (Quercus, £18.99) is a brilliantly formulated and well-written account of a tawdry murder that shines a bright light on postwar austerity

Full evidence of Jimmy Knapp moment found here.

To read Tom McCarthy’s intro to Swimming Home click here and scroll to More Information.

To read Malarky, well you know exactly what to do. Hop on down to your local bookstore or click on over to the various online stores. You may or may not experience a Jimmy Knapp moment.  You will certainly experience multiple moments for Malarky is an episodic narrative in which each episode is an extrapolation of a single moment in Our Woman’s life.

If you’re in the UK or Ireland or Australia, India or South Africa: Malarky will be published by Oneworld and on your doorsteps during 2013, likely summer. I shall post the publication date as soon as I know.