Talk Of The Town

Jacob Polley

Talk Of The Town
A fierce cry of talent, raw as a confession and tender as a poem. Polley’s language is mercurial, his humour quick and surprising.
A perfectly pitched quest for lost innocence
anonymous
 

Talk of the Town by Jacob Polley has been shortlisted for this year's Desmond Elliott Prize.

Jacob Polley
 

Jacob Polley
 

Here's what I reckon you need to write a novel: decisiveness. I'm not used to exercising this particular quality when I'm writing a poem. A poem is a way of revealing, and it will reveal nothing if, in its writing, it isn't allowed to go somewhere unexpected, the directions to which are not mapped out in advance. I began to write my first novel, Talk Of The Town, in this same spirit of suspended decisiveness.