Ella Frears is an artist and poet whose debut collection Shine, Darling was shortlisted for the T S Eliot and Forward Prizes. Goodlord is her first longform fiction - a fierce, dark, funny and addictively readable novel told via one long email to an estate agent.
12th May 2025
Paperback
PRODUCT INFORMATION
Summary
Ella Frears is an artist and poet whose debut collection Shine, Darling was shortlisted for the T S Eliot and Forward Prizes. Goodlord is her first longform fiction - a fierce, dark, funny and addictively readable novel told via one long email to an estate agent.
Description
SHORTLISTED FOR THE FORWARD PRIZE 2024
SKY ARTS AWARD NOMINEE for BREAKTHROUGH ARTIST OF THE YEAR 2024A Guardian BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024'ALL THE HOT WOMEN I KNOW HAVE ELLA FREARS ON THEIR BEDSIDE TABLES' Sheena Patel'It's Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground reimaged for the renting generation' Emily Dinsdale, DAZED'A dazzling treat of a book, genuinely inventive, spiky and funny' Holly Williams, Observer 'As compelling as any thriller' Graeme Richardson, Sunday Times 'I urge you to read Ella Frears' wild and dark new book' Eva Wiseman, The Observer 'A dark, addictive and deceptively erudite read' Kate Simpson, Telegraph (5*)I had to wait, input a five-digit code sent to me via text. When it came through it was:00000 which seems insane.I stared at it for more than my allotted minutes. How is it that I found myself with all those holes?A row of ohs. Disgusting.No, I can't go on. I won't, Ava. Do you watch porn? Asked by letting agent, Ava, to make an account with the ominous sounding property technology 'Goodlord', our narrator launches into a breathless and rage fuelled reply that swings wildly between anecdotes of chaotic house-shares, grubby university halls, the claustrophobic school days that haunt her still, her various underpaid exploitative jobs at pubs and restaurants, relationships and sexual encounters both troubling and ecstatic, and an artists' residency that offers her the space she craves but demands a complicated transaction in return.Written in sharp, unflinching prose, Goodlord exposes the grinding inequalities of modern life. It is a blistering exploration of what it means to live in a world where everything, including your dignity, comes with a price tag.Critic Reviews
ALL THE HOT WOMEN I KNOW HAVE ELLA FREARS ON THEIR BEDSIDE TABLES -- Sheena Patel
A trailblazing, genre-defying coup-de-maȋtre of a book, one that speaks to the issues of property, consent, contracts and how bodies become things both to be let out, and let in . . . A dark, addictive and deceptively erudite read -- Kate Simpson Telegraph
Goodlord takes the form of a long, rambling email to an estate agent . . . this apparently artless tale of the young narrator's various dwellings - mouldy flats, chaotic flat-shares, dingy basements - becomes as compelling as any thriller . . . Frears retains her poet's eye for the memorable phrase . . . But she also deploys a rarer gift, tackling grand themes - property, misogyny, justice - without preaching or ranting. Anger about the precarity and indignity of modern life burns through these pages. But you don't want to look away. -- Graeme Richardson Sunday Times
A witty, indignant and poignant look at the way our desire for a place to call home has been misshapen and distorted by the morbid pathologies of the market -- Kieran Goddard
About the Author
Ella Frears is a writer and poet based in London. Her debut collection Shine, Darling was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, and the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry. She has held residencies and fellowships for the Tate Gallery, the National Trust, Royal Holloway University physics department, John Hansard Gallery, the Dartington Trust, 16 motorway service stations, the number 17 bus in Southampton, and Exeter University's environmental history department. Goodlord, is shortlisted for The Forward Prize and a Sky Arts Award for Breakthrough Artist of the Year. Ella is a current Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the Courtauld Institute of Art and hosts Tears for Frears on Soho Radio.
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12th May 2025
