In This Block There Lives a Slag

In the title story of this sharp, clever collection of short stories, an odd-job man arrives home to his Bradford council block to find a message waiting for one of its inhabitants—in ten-foot-high letters. With his white van and set of ladders, he’s the chief suspect. But who is the mysterious Slag that has the whole street gossiping; and who has she hurt? In "Wrestling Jacob," a lusty academic takes out his frustrations down on the farm every weekend, sparring with a fierce, strangely human ram. It’s hard work being beaten up by a sheep, but he soon realizes that his girlfriends love to see him wrestle Jacob. And in "Coddock," there’s a bold new chipshop owner in town. But who is he? And what do you get if you cross a cod with a haddock, anyway? From the backstreets of Bradford to dingy moorland pubs with ten-year-old jukeboxes, Bill Broady’s bright new stories give Yorkshire a lick of new paint, with all of the searingly precise prose, wit, and energy of his highly acclaimed first novel, Swimmer.