PILLOW: A NOVEL

Longlisted for the 2016 Giller Prize

Shortlisted for the 2015 Kobo Emerging Writer Award

The Walrus Best Books of 2016

Pillow loves animals. Especially the exotic ones. Which is why he chooses the zoo for the drug runs he does as a low-level enforcer for a crime syndicate run by André Breton. He doesn't love his life of crime, but he isn't cut out for much else, what with all the punches to the head he took as a professional boxer. And now that he's accidentally but sort of happily knocked up his neighbor, he wants to get out and go straight. But first there's the matter of some stolen coins, possibly in the possession of George Bataille, which leads Pillow on a bizarre caper that involves kidnapping a morphine-addled Antonin Artaud, some corrupt cops, a heavy dose of Surrealism, and a quest to see some giraffes.

"Wildly effervescent. The dialogue, the pacing, the plot: it sizzles, it sparkles. Pillow is an hilarious, humane, fearsomely original novel by a young novelist—this Andrew Battershill; this wet-behind-the-ears rookie!—who writes with such skill and daring that you'd think this was his tenth book rather than his debut."

-Craig Davidson, Author of Rust and Bone and Cataract City

Reviews

". . . diamond-sharp writing. The author's use of metaphor and imagery is exquisite; he plays with surrealism with such a light step so as to appear effortless . . . This debut is accomplished and highly entertaining." 

Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

". . . this intriguing, funny, and effective debut" 

National Post