Nettleblack: neo-Victorian queer farce, with Nat Reeve
Featured Speakers
Nat Reeve & Lindsay Kyle
*Bookings close at 6, but you can still pop along and get a ticket on the door!*
"To be blunt: I must escape."
Subversive and playful, Nettleblack is a neo-Victorian queer farce that follows a runaway heir/ess and an organisation of crime-fighting misfits as they struggle with the misdeeds besieging a rural English town!
Told through journal entries and letters, the book is a picaresque ride through the perils and joys of finding your place in the world, challenging myths about queerness – particularly transness – as a modern phenomenon, while exploring the practicalities of articulating queer perspectives when you’re struggling for words.
“A joy to be invited into the raucous, charming, conniving world of Nettleblack. Nat Reeve's novel presents a vivid, entirely engrossing story where subterfuge, scurrilousness, skullduggery and sincerity zip through the pages. All told with wit, flair and heart: a true delight.” – Eley Williams, author of The Liar’s Dictionary and Attrib. & Other Stories
“Fresh, witty, and wildly original, Nettleblack is an unforgettable debut that brings a world of subversive characters to brilliant life, and announces the arrival of a unique new voice.” - Preti Taneja, author of Aftermath and We That Are Young
To take us on the particular caper we have its author, debut novelist Nat Reeve! Nat is a writer and researcher currently working towards a PhD in Victorian art, literature and queerness at Royal Holloway. In academical guise, they mostly write about Elizabeth Siddal causing havoc with medieval objects, or horrible geese invading Pre-Raphaelite artworks. They have also been known to edit, perform in and direct Victorian plays and operas, to the sideburn-stricken bafflement of their audiences.
We're thrilled to have Nat in conversation with our very own Lindsay Kyle, and weather permitting we'll be in the lush setting of the bookshop garden for this one!
