In this week's edition of Endnotes, we take a look at Colwill Brown's We Pretty Pieces of Flesh, an indelible picture of life in South Yorkshire in the aughts around the story of three women’s enduring but fraught friendship. In its review, PW says "this sharp and tender novel teems with life."
Here's how the book came together:
Colwill Brown
“Though the story is firmly rooted in a particular time and place, I was also trying to get at something more fundamental about girlhood, the way sex and sexuality and body image and peer pressure and pop culture and misogyny and violence come flying at you apace, before you’ve had a chance to figure out who the hell you are, or who you could become.”
Henry Dunow
“Colwill showed me several stories from the book—at the time, she was seeing it as a linked collection—and I was immediately smitten. We sent it out and were thrilled when Caroline Zancan preempted for Holt. This was followed by a lively auction in the U.K. as well as a film deal with a British production company.”
Caroline Zancan
“I’ll never forget reading We Pretty Pieces of Flesh—it was like nothing I’ve read before or since. It’s written in a dialect, so for the first few pages there was some mental stumbling, but about 10 pages in, something in my brain clicked and I became fluent in the voice of the book.”
Nicolette S. Ruggiero
“The title and author type were chosen to reflect the characters’ young age but also have a coolness and boldness befitting them. The color palette references nightlife, which is a thread throughout their lives, and shows the glamour they aspire to when going out dancing. But the image itself is the star here.”
