Come to
the edge
Kavenna writes as if possessed, as if on a mission, as if she had been taken over by her wonderful, impossible, dynamic leading character. There is no stopping Cassandra White. It is a name that spells doom and guarantees entertainment. This is a novel to read at speed, laughing all the way to the edge…What is brilliant is that, just beneath its amusing surface, this novel is serious. It is left to the reader to judge to what degree…This is also a novel that explores the pointlessness of worshipping wealth and the peculiar liberation of physical labour, the moments when the narrator barely knows herself because, almost against her will, she is being sustained by natural beauty – free pleasures. She evolves into a latterday Goldilocks while Cassandra, limbering up for martyrdom, becomes fiercer than the three bears. Joanna Kavenna, meanwhile, has consolidated her reputation as one of the most entertaining, fluent and readable novelists around.
Kate Kellaway, Guardian
Joanna Kavenna's very funny and disturbing first novel, Inglorious, examined the unravelling of one young woman as she slipped through the gaps into outer darkness. Her third novel, Come to the Edge, takes the satire up another notch into pure, black comedy…Kavenna's comedy is effortless, brilliant and occasionally savage…Once again, Joanna Kavenna is questioning the invisible rules of modern life and the sheer difficulty of self-determination, and doing it with wit, originality, and style.
Kate Saunders, Literary Review
Joanna Kavenna's witty and provocative third novel…brandishes a vision of rural apocalypse, then hurtles through a darkly comical back-story to explain how we got there…By pairing two lavishly flawed characters, Kavenna has confidently invaded the uncertain landscape of Magnus Mills…Come to the Edge delivers richly on the promise of Inglorious, Kavenna's uncomfortably edgy debut novel. A resonance of mental instability thrums throughout as Kavenna probes received notions of justice and equality, property and rights, in this often hilarious and fast-paced tale of rural revolt. Come to the Edge has resolution writ large from the outset, and powers up from its brazen characters' challenge to moral rectitude.
James Urquhart, Independent
Oh my aching sides…Laugh? I nearly exploded reading Kavenna's knock-out satire…
Val Hennessey, Daily Mail
A timely satire…[The narrator] has a marvellous vocabulary, a literary style steeped in the tropes of modernism and the spirit of an adventurer…Kavenna has a deftness and wit which carry you along at such a pace that you hardly notice the technical feat of her skill in mastering a large cast and a plot full of bizarre turns. And she's very funny, too…The book offers a very original corrective to dinner-party talk of property prices and granite kitchen countertops. As such, it would make a terrific book-group choice. Come to the Edge is playful, inventive, and very much of its time.
Cressida Connolly, The Spectator
Kavenna is known for her mordant wit, and here it falls to those on both sides of the class divide – society's radicals and its fat cats - to be satirised … Kavenna captures the absurdities behind social activists with the same panache as she does society's capitalists, but behind the comedy there lies a dark warning of what can happen when social inequalities become just too plainly obvious.
Francesca Angelini, Sunday Times
In the distinguished tradition of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca…Kavenna cleverly satirises the badly thought-out projects of these would-be reformers: one a leader, the other a follower. Sharp…well-written and darkly comic.
Ruth Scurr, Daily Telegraph
Crazy, surreal, sharp, funny, and ultimately also serious…The growing realisation that the narrator is fixated on finding things out for herself, even if it means putting herself in harm's way, is masterfully managed. The serious point is that private property is a social convention, or at least a set of contracts not impossible to surmount by enough force… A memorable read.
We Love This Book
A hilarious, timely satire from award winning Joanna Kavenna, Come to the Edge is an amused/serious take on the impact of second-homers on the countryside's local residents. Perceptive, funny, irreverent and topical, Come to the Edge crackles and sparkles and will have you chuckling on every page.
Red Magazine
A darkly funny, playful and elegantly written tale of what happens when the tables are turned on the bankers.'
Psychologies
Political this novel certainly is - not only an assault on second home owners, even the sacred National Trust, but on much of our consumerist society … Kavenna has form, winning the Orange award with her first novel, Inglorious, and this book is dedicated to the real Cassandra - a woman I would very much like to meet.
Tribune
Imagine a cross between Cold Comfort Farm, Tamara Drewe and a film by Danny (Olympics Opening Ceremony) Boyle, and you'll get a sense of this riotous comic novel….Bowls along with all the wild, unstoppable energy of a full Cumbrian spate.
Stephanie Cross, The Lady
This compact novel is a short, sharp shock of a read, darkly funny…It left me wanting to find more works by this author.
Country Life
This is Joanna Kavenna's fourth published novel and is certainly a noteworthy addition to her steadily expanding repertoire. Named as one the Telegraph's 20 British writers under 40 to watch in 2010, and the winner of the 2008 Orange New Writers' Prize for her debut The Birth Of Love, Kavenna delivers a brilliantly executed satire that is both sharp and poignant. An addictive read.' –
Natsayi Sithole, The Irish Examiner
Kavenna offers a lively, irreverent voice to the growing…sense of unease at the ills of the wealth divide and unchecked capitalism
Metro
An unlikely friendship is formed amid a desolate English countryside inhabited by the haves and have-nots in Joanna Kavenna's dark and moving satire
Stylist
Come to the Edge for me was one of those books that you instantly fall in love with….Here's what you can expect: a quirky, sarcastic and hilarious duo, a most unusual plot and roaring with laughter at 1 a.m when everyone else is sleeping and even though you need to get up for work in 6 hours, you just shrug and keep reading…The novel is about her strange friendship with Cassandra, about the differences between rural and suburban life, between the rich and the poor. Take all these ingredients, add a pinch of sarcasm and 3 tablespoons of humour and you get Joanna Kavenna's masterpiece. My only problem with this story is that I feel like no matter how hard I try, my review won't do it justice…It's a charming, entertaining and laugh-out-loud funny page-turner – a definite must have. And just a tip for commuters: do not read it on your way to work, including trains and the tube. Believe me, you'll be crying with laughter.
The author of Inglorious, The Birth of Love, and The Ice Museum has excelled herself. The book is satirical and as such it might have had a limited readership. But satire, like fiction, is only as good as it is believable. Come to the Edge solicits and engages the reader: it could happen, in fact it should happen, perhaps it did happen, or perhaps it is happening right now, away in the depths of the Home Counties, far from the notice of the Media, (which in any case, is so given up to its B List celebrities, its deep-carpetted halls, and its gameshows that it would barely lift a microscope to anything so unusual). Kavenna's prose is original and powerful enough to convince a cynic. It is superb, divine storytelling…The dialogue in her book is vivid, brisk and telling. The violence is unusual and very imaginative. The sex, though regrettably blasphemous, would probably have made Jesus laugh…
bookgroupinfo.co.uk