Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

A Shock

By: Keith Ridgway
Narrated by: Harry Myers
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £9.99

Buy Now for £9.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

Shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction and The Goldsmiths Prize

A Guardian, New York Times, Spectator, Hot Press and White Review Book of the Year

In A Shock, a clutch of more or less loosely connected characters appear, disappear and reappear. They are all of them on the fringes of London life, often clinging on—to sanity or solvency or a story—by their fingertips.

Keith Ridgway, author of the acclaimed Hawthorn & Child, writes about people whose understanding of their own situation is only ever partial and fuzzy, who are consumed by emotions and anxieties and narratives, or the lack thereof, that they cannot master. He focuses on peripheral figures who mean well and to whom things happen, and happen confusingly, and his fictional strategies reflect this focus. In a deftly conjured high-wire act, Ridgway achieves the fine balance between the imperatives of drama and fidelity to his characters. The result is pin-sharp and often breathtaking.

©2021 Keith Ridgway (P)2021 Macmillan Publishers International Ltd
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: LGBTQ+
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Trial cover art
Beyond Kidding cover art
Happy Now cover art
Just for Today cover art
The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again cover art
Damaged cover art
This Thing of Darkness cover art
Platform Seven cover art

Critic reviews

"A Shock is a perfect, living circle of beauty and mystery; clear-sighted and compassionate, and, at times, wonderfully funny." (David Hayden)

"A Shock inhabits the secret life of a city, its hidden energies. It dramatizes how patterns form and then disperse, how stories are made and relationships created...remarkable." (Colm Tóibín, author of Brooklyn)

"Political, pertinent, spunky and funny, A Shock is a grand sweep of modern storytelling." (June Caldwell, author of Room Little Darker)

What listeners say about A Shock

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    19
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    18
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    15
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Amazing narration, great book

All Keith Ridgway is an immediate purchase for me, and the narration by Harry Myers is an incredible performance, complements perfectly the wide perspective of the book!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Beautiful

Best book I’ve listened to in ages. The narration sings and the stories unfold in an intimate but softly amusing way. Loved the descriptive patterns and rambling words. It reminds me so much of my own inner twittering. Lovely book!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Mesmerising

Just such a beautiful listen. Harry Myers does so much justice to the micro details of lives being lived. My first Keith Ridgeway. Now for more....

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!