little scratch

**Shortlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize 2021**

**An Observer 10 Best Debut Novelists of 2021**

'An extremely perceptive depiction of power and agency.' Guardian
'Startlingly original.' VOGUE
'Extraordinary.' New Yorker

little scratch tells the story of a day in the life of an unnamed woman, living in a lower-case world of demarcated fridge shelves and office politics; clock-watching and WhatsApp notifications. In a voice that is fiercely wry, touchingly delicate and increasingly neurotic, the protagonist relays what it takes to get through the quotidian detail of that single trajectory - from morning to night - while processing recent sexual violence.

little scratch is about the coexistence of monotony with our waking, intelligent lives. It is a powerful evocation of how the external and internal aspects of our lives exist in a helix, and what it means to live out the course of a single day consumed by trauma.

'Wry, funny and heartbreaking.' Sophie Mackintosh
'little scratch is a story that is urgent. It is a story that needs to be told.' Meena Kandasamy
'Reads like the cinders settling in the air after an explosion... daring and completely readable.' Colin Barrett
'little scratch is a little miracle... impossible to read it and not wish there were more books like it.' Alan Trotter
'Confident and vital... little scratch is an absolute gift.' Naoise Dolan

www.rebeccawatson.co.uk