Wallpapering

Some secrets cannot be hidden even by the thickest layer... A young Czech author has written a fresh novel set in the British fishing town of Whitby in the Yorkshire countryside of the 1950s. The protagonist Irving is a 20-year-old gay man whose parents die shortly after each other. Irving's reunion with the rest of his family at the funeral awakens memories that the young man has long tried to "paper over"... 

The Manchester of the fifties and sixties was indeed not the freest city for a brooding young man of Irving's ilk. He can't even leave his apartment without being watched by the prying eyes of his neighbours - potential informers, and those depressing howls won't leave his tired shoulders... This brilliantly crafted monologic prose has the potential to be a hit in the field of young Czech literature: the gradual unravelling of secrets and moving events from the narrator's past is not unlike the methods of the classic British school of detective fiction, the peculiarity of the central character is a source of continuous surprises, and the strong and believable emotions associated with the different characters and their complex relationships are dispensed with entomological precision.

Ema Labudová won the 2019 Book Club Literary Award for her book The Wallpaper Man.