MILKMAN by ANNA BURNS (2018)

Eighteen-year-old middle sister has a problem -- she is being stalked by a man more than twice her age who is rumored to be a member of a violent paramilitary group. To add to her troubles, everyone in her tight-knit community is gossiping about her, assuming she is having an affair with the man, and she is ambivalent about her relationship with her maybe-boyfriend, an auto mechanic near her own age. Not even her own mother believes her when she tries to tell her the truth about the situation.

All of this takes place in the 1970s in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, during a time when car bombings and disappearances were commonplace, when "the only time you's call the police in my area would be if you were going to shoot them, and naturally, they would know this and so wouldn't come," when the people most likely to be killed were the civilians, not members of the army, the police, or either side's paramilitary organizations. It's a hard time to be growing up.

Middle sister is the narrator of this astonishingly fascinating novel, which won the 2018 Man Booker Prize. The story is told in a breathless avalanche of almost, but not quite, stream-of-consciousness prose, with a mesmerizing Irish lilt and rhythm. Although its circumstances are specific as to the unique difficulties of the time and place, the difficulties of the narrator would be universal in many situations: when a woman is being stalked by a man who hasn't really done anything unlawful --yet; when a small community's gossip and expectations limit people's lives; when the police are feared rather than looked to for help.

Despite what might be expected, Milkman is often very funny. Among the humorous bits, middle sister's attempt to separate herself from the random violence around her leads her to "walking while reading," a habit deemed as suspicious and undesirable by her neighbors. I can relate to that.

I highly recommend this novel.