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Strip the Willow

by John Aberdein

ISBN: 9781846971198
Imprint: Polygon
Publication Date: May 2009
Format: Paperback (eBook also available)
Price: £9.99
Stock Status: in stock

eBook also available at the iBookstore

WINNER OF THE 2010 MORTGAGE INVESTMENT TRUST BOOK FICTION AWARD

"You’ll be hard pushed to find a more cleverly constructed read this year. Quite superb," - The List

’Before you could sort a city out, you had to clean up the source.’

That is the challenge Lucy faces...

For years she made that common mistake: her heart was blocked, she thought she was alone. Now, as predatory LeopCorp gets set to pounce on a bankrupt Uberdeen, her quest for fellow-resisters has to speed up pronto.

Feisty Alison? Subtle anarchist Iris? Ruthless young Gwen? The big fisherman with a chip on his deck, the Cretan professor – or the smart anti-capitalist clowns? Perhaps the overcrowded Polish workers – or the wounded haunting stranger that has rolled back into town? Or is Lucy simply past it? Might as well retreat to Morocco and let GrottoLotto take over the streets for a new global bonanza...?

Black political satire meets salty, funny love story. Strip the Willow reveals itself as a dance of vision, desire, plotting and despair. The apocalypse when it comes is pretty damn sharp, the tenderness real.

A vivid, breathtaking tale, Strip the Willow is the long-awaited second novel by the author of Saltire award-winning Amande’s Bed.

Born in Aberdeen, John Aberdein has worked as fisherman, teacher and political campaigner in North-East Scotland, London, Fife, Hampshire, the West Coast and Orkney. His early stories were edited by Duncan McLean in Ahead of Its Time (Jonathan Cape) John Aberdein’s story ’Moving’ was a prize-winner in the Scotsman Orange Short Story Awards 2004.

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