Sterling Karat Gold


 Contents
 
 Cover
 Half Title Page
 Title Page
 Copyright
 1. The Whole of Camden Town is One Big, Unsung Bullfight.
 2. ‘Look at Me,’ They Say, as if That Would Change Anything.
 3. Hard Feelings.
 4. My Father’s Lover was Never the stepdad i wanted him to be.
 5. The Garden of Earthly Delights as a Detention Centre near Margate.
 6. Defendant Accused of Blah.
 7. Those Babies Carry Bombs!
 8. Google Earthlings.
 9. Date Night was a Fiasco, what you Expect.
 10. East Finchley Ugly Hole in the Ground.
 11. The Past is Hands Down Preferable to the Present i Came from.
 12. The End of the Trial.
 List of References
 Acknowledgements
 About the Author
 
 
 
 
 Cover
 Copyright
 Title Page
 
 
 
 
 Cover
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 Praise for Sterling Karat Gold
 
 “Isabel Waidner collides the real and the mythic, the beautiful and the grotesque, to mind-bending effect. Time-travel constrained by the limitations of Google Maps and trials out of Hieronymus Bosch never out-dazzle the human heart in this novel of friendship, art, injustice, and all that can be imagined and unimagined. From the first page, matadors in North London seem entirely plausible and we wait to see what might be coming around the next corner. Waidner has a live, distinctive intelligence that pushes form to make us see the world around us in new ways and perhaps even for the first time.”
 —Kamila Shamsie, Goldsmiths Prize judge
 “This Goldsmiths prize-winning romp through austerity Britain is a provocative act of resistance to our morally slippery times. It’s endlessly associative, bursting with ribaldry and Tory-baiting satire; reading Waidner is like plugging into an electric socket of language and ideas.”
 —The Guardian (UK)
 “Waidner is subverting conventions on 
 
 Sterling
 Karat
 Gold
 
 
 
 
 
 Also by Isabel Waidner
 
 FICTION
 We Are Made of Diamond Stuff
 Gaudy Bauble
 AS EDITOR
 Liberating the Canon:
 An Anthology of Innovative Literature
 
 
 
 Sterling
 Karat
 Gold
 A Novel
 Isabel
 Waidner
 GRAYWOLF PRESS
 
 
 
 
 Copyright © 2021 by Isabel Waidner
 First published by Peninsula Press, London
 The author and Graywolf Press have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify Graywolf Press at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.
 This publication is made possible, in part, by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund. Significant support has also been provided by the McKnight Foundation, the Lannan