The Voids
In a condemned tower block in Glasgow, the final occupant, a young man uplifted by angels and plagued by demons, searches for life in the voids: vacant flats that will never be lived in again. Out in the world, he stumbles into the city, moving from one surreal situation to the next, encountering others on the margins of society, embracing friendship and camaraderie wherever it is offered, grappling with who he is and what shape his future might take.
‘Luminous … a writer capable of revealing the humanity in everyone … In an era when contemporary fiction is leaning ever more towards identity and relatability, it’s gratifying to know there’s still a place for a literary ride as wild as this.’
‘A novel about a young man in Glasgow whose life is spiralling downwards, told in almost hallucinogenic prose. I catch glimpses of Alexander Trocchi and William Burroughs in it, but it retains its own unique quality.’
‘A sensory portrait of the city, set in a dizzyingly surreal Glasgow.’
‘A startling debut … Benders are integral to the Scottish literary tradition, but O’Connor sets the bar high in a series of absurd, visionary, uproarious episodes … A triumph of the grotesque … Comedy at its most existential.’
‘At times disturbing, and at others hilarious, there are characters that appear for a page that have haunted me ever since. A wild ride that journeys through the underbelly of our society.’
‘There are echoes of J.G. Ballard in the setting, and of Don DeLillo in the prose. But The Voids is distinctively and brilliantly Ryan O’Connor’s own, rich with precise observations, full of haunting images, and replete with deft vignettes of character, place, and context. This is a novel that confidently generates its own unnerving atmospheres. Extraordinary work.’
‘In the space of a few pages, I was there, right in the world of The Voids, in its chaos and sadness, its life and humour. Melodrama and sentimentality have no place in Ryan O’Connor’s writing. Instead he gives us warmth and bleakness, humanity and beauty. The “voids” might be empty but this novel is brimming with feeling and perception.’
‘A moving and thoroughly enjoyable tale of life in the liminal spaces. A masterly debut.’
'This distinctive debut leaves you wanting to read more from O’Connor.’
‘Remarkable … perhaps the most intriguing Scottish debut for a decade.’
‘Beautiful, and both explicit and allusive, The Voids is a brave and moving work.’
‘Reading The Voids is a sensory experience. There is never a word too much, it never lingers. There is tragedy but no melodrama. O’Connor’s lightness of touch, the pace, economy, characters … are all perfect, all harmonious, poetic, but unadorned, even in the blackest of moments. Part of me is still in that high rise or watching the sunlight through the fire exit door at The Satellite. It is beautiful and perfect. I want to say this is a book God would like.’