News | Monday, 5th February 2024
Debut novel from University author hailed as ‘a magnificent kaleidoscope’
Professor Andrew McMillan’s much anticipated 'Pity' earns rave reviews from the BBC, Guardian and Sunday Times
The debut novel of a Manchester Met contemporary writing professor has picked up numerous literary plaudits including Sunday Times’ Best Book of 2024, BBC’s Most Anticipated Book of 2024, and Independent’s Best Fiction to Read in 2024.
Prof Andrew McMillan’s Pity is set across three generations of a South Yorkshire mining family and laments a lost way of life, as well as celebrating resilience and the possibility for change.
Described by New York Times bestselling writer Ocean Vuong as 'a deeply felt and rich enactment of love, loneliness and personal triumph’, it is set in Prof McMillan’s childhood town of Barnsley and explores a world that is forever changed by the closure of the coal mining pits.
The impact this has on lives and, particularly, masculinity and sexuality is addressed by Prof McMillan, with the result hailed by the Independent as ‘a magnificent kaleidoscope of a novel: sad, wise, enlightening and empathetic.’
Prof McMillan said: “I’ve lived all my life in the north of England, and I’ve always been interested in exploring the role that writing can play in answering the question of who gets to tell the story of a place, and what story do we even mean? The characters in the novel all wrestle with this idea – like the drag queen trying to reshape understanding of the town’s past, the former miner still grappling with how to carry what’s been lost into the future, and a call centre employee trying to make ends meet.”
These characters include brothers Alex and Brian, who have spent their whole life in the town where their father lived and his father, too. Now in his middle age and still reeling from the collapse of his personal life, Alex must reckon with a part of his identity he has long tried to conceal. His only child Simon has no memory of the mines. Now in his twenties and working in a call centre, he derives passion from his side hustle in sex work and drag gigs.
Other plaudits for Pity include the Guardian which named it Best Book to Look Out for in 2024 and New Statesman, which included the novel in its list of Fiction Highlights for 2024.
Prof McMillan is a multi-award-winning poet and Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Manchester Met’s Manchester Writing School. His debut collection physical (2015) was the first poetry collection to win the Guardian Book Award and went on to scoop numerous other prizes.
Shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, among others, Prof McMillan’s second collection, playtime won the inaugural Polari Prize. His latest poetry collection is pandemonium (2021).
Ahead of the publication of Pity by Canongate on 8 February and in collaboration with writing development agency New Writing North, Prof McMillan launched The Tempest Prize, named after the street he grew up in, and with the mission to find new unpublished queer writers from the North of England.
The Tempest Prize will be open for entries between February and March 2024, with the winner announced at the Northern Writers’ Awards Ceremony in June 2024. The successful candidate will begin their mentorship with Prof McMillan later in 2024.
Pity by Prof Andrew McMillan will be published by Canongate on 8 February. An official launch and ‘in conversation with’ event hosted by Senior Lecturer at Manchester School of Writing Joe Stretch will take place at Manchester Central Library on 15 February.
