Shy: A Novel

One of The New Yorker’s Best Books of 2023"Porter blends verse and prose to create books that aren’t quite poems, but aren’t quite novels in the traditional sense, either.[…] Amid the book’s gloom, Porter found some room for levity in the darkness, breaking up the mood with playful turns of phrase[…]”—New York Times   “The words [Max Porter writes] are absolutely beautiful to say. Like all good writing, the more you say them, the more they reveal.”—Cillian Murphy“Max Porter has a way of writing unlike anyone else. I loved Shy. I finished it elated and tearful, joyful and terrified, changed by the journey. It moved me and surprised me and that is what I look for in my favourite artists.” —PJ Harvey "Shy is the strangest, most beguiling and affecting of all his books."—Ian Rankin"Max Porter is one of my favorite writers in the world. Why? Because he’s always asking the most important questions and then finding ways—through innovative structures and that inimitable voice—of answering those questions soulfully, with his full attention, in ways that make the world seem stranger and more dear (or more dear because stranger). He gives his readers, in other words, bursts of new vision."—George Saunders"I kept thinking of Mrs Dalloway. The comparison seems utterly inappropriate, and yet where else had I experienced a character lift of the page in this way, with such scattered force? And yet also with such choral beauty. It's a prose-bomb, this book; brief and brilliant."—Samantha Harvey"There is no other writer quite like Max, is there? His consistent ability to control the intersection of form and content, his precision, inventiveness, stylistic radiance and heart. Shy, the boy, is wholly convincing. Brutally, beautifully so. The way Max reveals his fragility without so much as a hint of sentimentality is masterful. It's a book that pushes back against the reductive nature of the now ubiquitous 'trauma plot' and, in doing so, more deeply honours the complexity of its subject."—Nathan Filer"Rattling out a fast snare rhythm above an undertow of bubbling, mournful sub-bass, Shy is full of soul, sweat and spunk—a sad, wild, beautiful, brave and funny journey through one struggling teenager’s brain."—Will Ashon