Scorper | Granta

  • Published: 01/10/2015
  • ISBN: 9781783781065
  • 129x30mm
  • 272 pages

Scorper

Rob Magnuson Smith

Scorper, noun, a tool used to scoop out broad areas when engraving wood or metal.

Scorper, novel, an uncanny and sinister tale of an eccentric American visitor to the small Sussex town of Ditchling, searching for stories about his grandfather. A tale of twitching curtains, severed hands and peculiar sexual practices. A book about Eric Gill’s artistic legacy, his despicable behaviour and enduring influence. Scorper is a strange and beautiful English comic masterpiece, with added bird bones.

Powerfully original, funny and strange and haunting

Tessa Hadley, author, Clever Girl

Scorper is a charming, funny, tender pleasure. A pleasing air of mania and madness

Andrew Miller, Costa Award-winning author, Pure

[An] original, darkly comic novel... It's a funny, unsettling read; Kafka crossed with Flann O'Brien

Brandon Robshaw, Independent on Sunday ****

The Author

Rob Magnuson Smith has been awarded the Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize, the David Higham Award and the William Faulkner Gold Medal for his debut novel The Gravedigger. His second novel Scorper was published by Granta. Recently he was longlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award. ‘Farm Tennis’ is part of an ongoing story cycle set in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. Earlier stories in this cycle have appeared in the Greensboro Review, The Clearing, and the Guardian.

More about the author →

Rob Magnuson Smith on Granta.com

Fiction | The Online Edition

Farm Tennis

Rob Magnuson Smith

‘Nobody bothered him when he was playing tennis. No matter how long he stayed out there, the door never took breaks.’

Fiction by Rob Magnuson Smith.

Essays & Memoir | The Online Edition

Best Book of 1901: The Octopus

Rob Magnuson Smith

Rob Magnuson Smith on why Frank Norris' The Octopus is the best book of 1901.