We Are Made of Diamond Stuff by Isabel Waidner

We Are Made of Diamond Stuff

Isabel Waidner

Set on the Isle of Wight, this short novel crams in a vast range of contemporary issues: migrant workers, minimum wage jobs, non-binary gender, British politics through to Blake’s poem ‘The Tyger’ and the Life in the UK test! It’s challenging to read this experimental book, lurching from clear, often humorous sections to surreal, absurdist writing. A thought-provoking read, and quite unlike anything I’ve read before!

Extract
Put on the spot, Shae can’t decide which of their many concerns they want Sharkae to take care of most urgently. A demand, to who? The government? Anyone, Sharkae replies. Stop warmongering? LGBTQI+ to the front? Worker’s rights? A pro-immigration agenda? Social housing in London? A leopard tamer for every household? Tories out?! I can’t choose just one, we have intersecting demands--.
The blood on Shae’s t-shirt is starting to boil, it’s rising more urgently than it usually does. The black and white stripy lightning bolt creeps into Shae’s field of vision--they settle for climate change. (What.) (We’ve got the English Defence League at our doorstep and Shae says to end climate change?)
Parallels
  • Secret Passages in a Hillside Town by Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen
  • Natural Novel by Georgi Gospodinov