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Five Miles from Outer Hope
Nicola Barker's teen queen heroine, Medve, has no truck with the niceties of polite expression. Medve is six foot three and living with her family in a crumbling art deco hotel on a small island, off the coast of England. She is "single-minded, oestrogen-fuelled and cunning", with a foul mouth and scattershot approach to story telling. Medve means bear in Hungarian and she gives the novel all the bite, ferocity and feral charm of her namesake.
Five Miles From Outer Hope is a compact book but, as usual, Nicola Barker manages to compress an awful lot in under 200 pages. Her work is darkly comic--weird, furtive and slightly rude. Her characters are unlikely, sometimes unlikeable, but they pack a huge punch. Medve is a roiling mass of hormones, her sister, Christobel, has swapped her "lovely breasts ... tiny chocolate-button-tipped conches, soft as a moth's wing, pale as a priest's kiss" for "tits like torpedoes"; brother Feely, age four, is obsessed by the melancholy death of Shiro Chan, Queen of the Deer of Nara, and plump pre-pubescent Patch, the youngest girl, is knowledgeable and secretive. Into this family affair comes 19-year-old La Roux, a deserter from the South African army (The Sauce) with ginger hair, "very bad skin and even worse instincts". Medve and La Roux embark on a barbed flirtation, full of simmering sexuality and bad intentions, which ends in the very destructive "Operation Vagina" involving crochet knickers and a "five inch, red-coloured, jelly-textured, thirty-seven-scraggy-legged centipede." Things are never the same again.
Nicola Barker's superb sixth book is sly and subversive --Eithne Farry
191 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
11 people are currently reading
267 people want to read
About the author
Nicola Barker
35 books307 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Nicola Barker is an English writer.
Nicola Barker’s eight previous novels include Darkmans (short-listed for the 2007 Man Booker and Ondaatje prizes, and winner of the Hawthornden Prize), Wide Open (winner of the 2000 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award), and Clear (long-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2004). She has also written two prize-winning collections of short stories, and her work has been translated into more than twenty languages. She lives in East London.
Nicola Barker is an English writer.
Nicola Barker’s eight previous novels include Darkmans (short-listed for the 2007 Man Booker and Ondaatje prizes, and winner of the Hawthornden Prize), Wide Open (winner of the 2000 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award), and Clear (long-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2004). She has also written two prize-winning collections of short stories, and her work has been translated into more than twenty languages. She lives in East London.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
August 26, 2014
Story of a Cornish summer, told by a 16 year old girl and set in 1981. Although I was that age in that year, her character, style, family and life could hardly be more different.
She is the middle of 5 children in a hippie, semi-nomadic family, with many strange quirks, some individual and some shared. She is a giant, her father almost a dwarf (or whatever is the PC term), her mother is away, and a weird South African lad comes to stay. It is supposedly about their teenage flirtation, but it's wider than that. She has a very "in your face" but conversational style which is meant to sound authentic, but I found rather irritating and overdone.
I didn't warm to any of the characters and even allowing for the context and setting, found the whole thing too ludicrous to be credible or very interesting. Fortunately it doesn't take long to read!
She is the middle of 5 children in a hippie, semi-nomadic family, with many strange quirks, some individual and some shared. She is a giant, her father almost a dwarf (or whatever is the PC term), her mother is away, and a weird South African lad comes to stay. It is supposedly about their teenage flirtation, but it's wider than that. She has a very "in your face" but conversational style which is meant to sound authentic, but I found rather irritating and overdone.
I didn't warm to any of the characters and even allowing for the context and setting, found the whole thing too ludicrous to be credible or very interesting. Fortunately it doesn't take long to read!
March 23, 2011
A swift, impish novella from the refreshingly oddball Hackney genius. Medve is your narrator: an acid-tongued sixteen-year-old with a line in erudite putdowns. (Except the story is narrated twenty-odd years in the future, with the narrator doing the voice of her teenage self — the logic is a little messy. Anyway).
Medve's world is turned on its head when a smelly South African ex-medic comes to stay in her father's derelict hotel. His determination to inspect her vagina becomes an increasing bugbear (as well as his inappropriate singing on fishing boats), so Medve exacts a fiendish revenge by hiding a rubber caterpillar up her cootch and pulling it out by a slippery cove. Much to his disgust and dismay.
Yes. This is Nicola Barker's realm, all right. It's fast and funny and sordid and silly. With an entirely uncalled-for serious wrap-up ending. Wide Open is her best book, but this is a charming little comic performance.
Medve's world is turned on its head when a smelly South African ex-medic comes to stay in her father's derelict hotel. His determination to inspect her vagina becomes an increasing bugbear (as well as his inappropriate singing on fishing boats), so Medve exacts a fiendish revenge by hiding a rubber caterpillar up her cootch and pulling it out by a slippery cove. Much to his disgust and dismay.
Yes. This is Nicola Barker's realm, all right. It's fast and funny and sordid and silly. With an entirely uncalled-for serious wrap-up ending. Wide Open is her best book, but this is a charming little comic performance.
July 16, 2021
The brilliant Nicola Barker does it again. When I wasn't laughing, I was gasping. Great read.For my full review please go to http://thebooksmithblog.wordpress.com
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December 29, 2014[3.5] I’ve started to associate Nicola Barker’s books with summer. It’s just that’s when I’ve read all of them so far, but there’s good reason with this one: it’s set in June 1981. (I didn’t consciously pick it up for that reason, but in that way that recently-read books often unexpectedly connect with each other, the last one I finished [Dorian by Will Self] also opened in 1981 and mentioned ‘Tainted Love’ early on.) Five Miles from Outer Hope should be set in late July or August though as there's no mention of school.
It was a nice breather to read something which had no deafening personal resonance or overwhelming beauty, yet which I nevertheless quite liked, and which doesn’t raise any Important Issues I feel the need to pontificate about. "Funny, sordid and silly", says MJ's review, and that's as good a description as any.
Six foot three, sixteen year-old Medve, her family and their dodgy lodger are typically bizarre early Nicola Barker characters. No sense of oxymoron in saying “typically bizarre”: it’s been about a year since I read any Barker, making the contrast with all the other characters in all the other books obvious. Would I rather be reading this than some more sedate, realist domestic saga with lots of earnest cookery scenes and predictable litfic accounts of what wife and husband think of one another? Absofuckinglutely.
Medve turns out to have the temperament of a mythological trickster goddess or a character in one of Angela Carter's debowdlerised fairytales. And her big weird family living in a run-down hotel are uglier, grubbier, and not as posh or clever as the Tenenbaums or the Bagthorpes or the people in I Capture the Castle, whatever they were called. They're more real and more surreal.
The voice here is one which developed into the third-person style in many of Barker’s more recent books, a clause-packed extravaganza more hyper than her first short stories. Medve’s narrative is forever trying to breathlessly pre-empt a reader’s imagined reaction to the last thing she said. It's typically Barker but its register is not so startling here; it's easier to place, in this slightly modified form, as first-person teenager: very strong personality and very much herself yet kind of defensive at times; smart-alec, exuberant, eccentric but not intellectual, definitely not girly but not a conventional tomboy. It’s a voice utterly recognisable from the internet (although this was first published in 2000).
Agreed with MJ again: the final chapter is unnecessary and jarring - though a handful of the more flippant details about the characters' futures were fun.
It was a nice breather to read something which had no deafening personal resonance or overwhelming beauty, yet which I nevertheless quite liked, and which doesn’t raise any Important Issues I feel the need to pontificate about. "Funny, sordid and silly", says MJ's review, and that's as good a description as any.
Six foot three, sixteen year-old Medve, her family and their dodgy lodger are typically bizarre early Nicola Barker characters. No sense of oxymoron in saying “typically bizarre”: it’s been about a year since I read any Barker, making the contrast with all the other characters in all the other books obvious. Would I rather be reading this than some more sedate, realist domestic saga with lots of earnest cookery scenes and predictable litfic accounts of what wife and husband think of one another? Absofuckinglutely.
Medve turns out to have the temperament of a mythological trickster goddess or a character in one of Angela Carter's debowdlerised fairytales. And her big weird family living in a run-down hotel are uglier, grubbier, and not as posh or clever as the Tenenbaums or the Bagthorpes or the people in I Capture the Castle, whatever they were called. They're more real and more surreal.
The voice here is one which developed into the third-person style in many of Barker’s more recent books, a clause-packed extravaganza more hyper than her first short stories. Medve’s narrative is forever trying to breathlessly pre-empt a reader’s imagined reaction to the last thing she said. It's typically Barker but its register is not so startling here; it's easier to place, in this slightly modified form, as first-person teenager: very strong personality and very much herself yet kind of defensive at times; smart-alec, exuberant, eccentric but not intellectual, definitely not girly but not a conventional tomboy. It’s a voice utterly recognisable from the internet (although this was first published in 2000).
Agreed with MJ again: the final chapter is unnecessary and jarring - though a handful of the more flippant details about the characters' futures were fun.
November 25, 2019
veel over te zeggen..maar achtergebleven met gevoel van...hm, niet slecht...
October 28, 2019
An early Barker, showing all the signs of her genius but not yet completely full-out whacky like her latest. So very very readable for a Barker. Absolutely loved it nonetheless. And she does have a beautiful chin.
August 31, 2010
Imagine this as the foulmouthed teenage girl version of David Mitchell's paean to being a teenager in Britain in the 1980s.
It's a mad tale, but hugely enjoyable - our storyteller, the 6-foot-something 16-yeard-old Medve, has a narrative style is to words as black forest gateaux is to cake; she just keeps piling it on:
'My clitoris, you'll be pleased to know, is as well-defined as the ret of me. It's the approximate size of a Jersey Royal. But whenever I try and mash it (don't sweat, I know these particular potatoes are determined boilers, but flow with the analogy for once, why don't you?) all I can think about is Mr Michael Heseltine MP eating an overripe peach on a missile silo somewhere deep in the South Downs - or in the general vicinity - juice on his tie, shit on his shoes. Am I ringing a bell? Do you think this might mean something?'
'(So I'm hardly an economist, but it suddenly feels like 1980s Britain is sweetly faltering on the quiet cusp of soon-to-be-full-throttle, hard-roaring, break-the-sound-barrier booming. She's like an anxious, sherry-drenched virgin nervously considering the scary technicalities of her imminent deflowering. She's staggering. She's teetering.)'
Medve has all the thin-skinned hyper-awareness of a teenage girl, and her blindness to what's really going on, and the sting at the end of the story is unexpected. All of a sudden we're thrown out of the self-centred teenage reverie, and into the colder harder adult world. It's a sad re-entry.
It's a mad tale, but hugely enjoyable - our storyteller, the 6-foot-something 16-yeard-old Medve, has a narrative style is to words as black forest gateaux is to cake; she just keeps piling it on:
'My clitoris, you'll be pleased to know, is as well-defined as the ret of me. It's the approximate size of a Jersey Royal. But whenever I try and mash it (don't sweat, I know these particular potatoes are determined boilers, but flow with the analogy for once, why don't you?) all I can think about is Mr Michael Heseltine MP eating an overripe peach on a missile silo somewhere deep in the South Downs - or in the general vicinity - juice on his tie, shit on his shoes. Am I ringing a bell? Do you think this might mean something?'
'(So I'm hardly an economist, but it suddenly feels like 1980s Britain is sweetly faltering on the quiet cusp of soon-to-be-full-throttle, hard-roaring, break-the-sound-barrier booming. She's like an anxious, sherry-drenched virgin nervously considering the scary technicalities of her imminent deflowering. She's staggering. She's teetering.)'
Medve has all the thin-skinned hyper-awareness of a teenage girl, and her blindness to what's really going on, and the sting at the end of the story is unexpected. All of a sudden we're thrown out of the self-centred teenage reverie, and into the colder harder adult world. It's a sad re-entry.
January 20, 2008
Barker has a very striking way with descriptions, and in itself that is her great strength. However in this book she over-uses them which becomes distracting and eventually quite annoying. There also wasn't much of a story, and as a whole I found it read like an exercise in 'how clever do I sound?'. She has shown vast improvements in her more recent novels (eg Darkmans).
November 28, 2018
Five Miles From Outer Hope is about a weird family, living (for now) in a crumbling hotel on a remote island - the father, Big, who is tiny and full of indigestion; Patch, who is smart and strange; Feely, who is obsessed with the story of a dead deer; and our narrator, Medve, who is enormously tall and rude and irreverent. Into their lives comes La Roux, an unhygienic but passionate deserter from the South African army. He and Medve start a strange flirtatious friendship, maybe learning more about themselves and their families along the way, maybe just wasting time while they wait for La Roux to be caught by the authorities.
Medve's voice is like Marmite; she's so brash and blunt and articulate about everything, I imagine it will definitely divide readers. I liked it; I didn't like everything about the book, but I did like her voice - it was funny and smart, and although it took a little while to fully get into her style, it was worth it, and I felt like I was in safe hands.
My problem, I guess, is La Roux.
He was interesting, I'll give him that, and he makes a very valid point about chickens and legs that definitely resonated with me. But during the course of his "flirtation" with Medve he goes on about female genitalia - Medve's in particular - in a way I found very repellant, and takes every opportunity to expose himself to her. Medve holds her own, and is no shrinking violet; and La Roux is shown to be a grotesque and strange figure, but even so he's ultimately a tragic figure who manages to forge emotional bonds with everyone, and there's no judgement for his actions - either in the plot, character dialogue, or narrative intent.
It's a short strange story, and I would recommend it for Medve, and the humour, and the oddly tragic ending.
Medve's voice is like Marmite; she's so brash and blunt and articulate about everything, I imagine it will definitely divide readers. I liked it; I didn't like everything about the book, but I did like her voice - it was funny and smart, and although it took a little while to fully get into her style, it was worth it, and I felt like I was in safe hands.
My problem, I guess, is La Roux.
He was interesting, I'll give him that, and he makes a very valid point about chickens and legs that definitely resonated with me. But during the course of his "flirtation" with Medve he goes on about female genitalia - Medve's in particular - in a way I found very repellant, and takes every opportunity to expose himself to her. Medve holds her own, and is no shrinking violet; and La Roux is shown to be a grotesque and strange figure, but even so he's ultimately a tragic figure who manages to forge emotional bonds with everyone, and there's no judgement for his actions - either in the plot, character dialogue, or narrative intent.
It's a short strange story, and I would recommend it for Medve, and the humour, and the oddly tragic ending.
September 16, 2019
One of the most apt and amusing book titles I have come across. The characters in Nicola Barker’s Five Miles From Outer Hope are indeed close to being out of hope in life. I was surprised to earn that Outer Hope is a real location in South Devon.
The storyline is light, a collection of incidents from a single summer in the life of sixteen-year-old Medve, an awkward teenager enduring life with her father and four brothers and sisters (her mother is in the US, selling her invention of an anal probe to the prison service. The monotony is broken by the arrival of a stranger, La Roux, who encourages mischief and practical jokes.
Despite the lack of real drama, the characters are endearing. By the time we reach the final pages, where Medve relates more of what happened to her family, we realise that we know them well enough to care.
For me, the most impressive feature of the novel was the author’s ability to sustain Medve’s intense monologues, which show her almost Aspergers-like thought-processes, which analyse the multiple alternative possibilities of her life events. Despite the boredom and insular nature of her family circumstances, which she is too young to escape, she remains optimistic and open for the future.
The storyline is light, a collection of incidents from a single summer in the life of sixteen-year-old Medve, an awkward teenager enduring life with her father and four brothers and sisters (her mother is in the US, selling her invention of an anal probe to the prison service. The monotony is broken by the arrival of a stranger, La Roux, who encourages mischief and practical jokes.
Despite the lack of real drama, the characters are endearing. By the time we reach the final pages, where Medve relates more of what happened to her family, we realise that we know them well enough to care.
For me, the most impressive feature of the novel was the author’s ability to sustain Medve’s intense monologues, which show her almost Aspergers-like thought-processes, which analyse the multiple alternative possibilities of her life events. Despite the boredom and insular nature of her family circumstances, which she is too young to escape, she remains optimistic and open for the future.
July 6, 2019
This is marvellous: reminds me a little of Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving. Nicola Barker captures the era brilliantly, Medve is a sweet and spirited heroine and the South African draft dodger La Roux is a lovely character too. The supporting cast are drawn with great skill too and the sense of place is spot on. Very funny, never less than entertaining, and ultimately very moving too. A perfect little book.
Nicola Barker is an amazing writer.
Nicola Barker is an amazing writer.
October 8, 2025
Nicola Barker helps me to remember that reading can be the most joyous and pleasurable experience! She uses arresting language and clever turns of phrase, and is a master at drawing distinct, interesting and authentic characters and placing them in uniquely odd situations that hint at the familiar. I can't get enough of her stories; thankfully I have a fair few novels left to read in her back catalog!
December 11, 2020
Weird and pointless
December 19, 2021
One of the strangest books I've ever read. I can't tell if I'd love or hate to be inside Nicola Barker's mind again, but even though I spent most of the book very thankful it was short, I'm doing something mad and upping my three stars to four. This is mostly based on the fact I laughed out loud a lot and simply cannot stop thinking about a scene in which a character repeatedly shouted 'Give me an Iced Gem!!!' on a fishing boat for about three pages. Wild.
December 8, 2012
Excellent! Loved it! Such zany characters... a bold story... very original.
I enjoyed the language/writing style immensely. I'm trying to choose just one quote that is representative of this book... but I am finding that it is hard to take anything out of context, since one incident flows into another. But here goes, this paragraph early in the book actually is a good summary of the what is to come:
"And it was the self-same summer -- June 5th, if precision is your watchword -- that I first set eyes on a stringy souther hemisphere home-boy a man-boy, a prankish puck by the name of La Roux (with very bad skin and even worse instincts), who sailed into the slow-beating heart of our halfarsed, high-strung, low-bred family, then casually capsized himself, but left us all drowning (now they don't teach you that at the Sea Scouts, do they?)"
If this is representative of her early work, which many say is not her best, then I am in for a real treat since I also purchased WIDE OPEN when I picked this one up on the Black Friday sale at Amazon! Until then, this family is going to stay with me for awhile. I might even for a second read.
I enjoyed the language/writing style immensely. I'm trying to choose just one quote that is representative of this book... but I am finding that it is hard to take anything out of context, since one incident flows into another. But here goes, this paragraph early in the book actually is a good summary of the what is to come:
"And it was the self-same summer -- June 5th, if precision is your watchword -- that I first set eyes on a stringy souther hemisphere home-boy a man-boy, a prankish puck by the name of La Roux (with very bad skin and even worse instincts), who sailed into the slow-beating heart of our halfarsed, high-strung, low-bred family, then casually capsized himself, but left us all drowning (now they don't teach you that at the Sea Scouts, do they?)"
If this is representative of her early work, which many say is not her best, then I am in for a real treat since I also purchased WIDE OPEN when I picked this one up on the Black Friday sale at Amazon! Until then, this family is going to stay with me for awhile. I might even for a second read.
July 7, 2007
After reading this passage, on the first page, no less, I was hooked:
“And it was that self-same summer—June 5th, if precision is your watchword—that I first set eyes on a stringy southern hemisphere home-boy, a man-boy, a prankish puck by the name of La Roux (with very bad skin and even worse instincts), who sailed into the slow-beating heart of our half-arsed, high-strung, low-bred family, then casually capsized himself, but left us all drowning (now they don’t teach you that at the Sea Scouts, do they?).”
I must have read it again and again, trying it aloud, as fast as I could. The cadence is amazing. Just the way the words flow together makes me happy. It doesn't hurt that the fellow described reminds me of an idiot I'm still trying to get over.
A great coming-of-age story with such an unique personal voice and, again, a great way with words. I stumbled upon this while searching the pitiful English language selection at my local library and I'm really happy I did so.
“And it was that self-same summer—June 5th, if precision is your watchword—that I first set eyes on a stringy southern hemisphere home-boy, a man-boy, a prankish puck by the name of La Roux (with very bad skin and even worse instincts), who sailed into the slow-beating heart of our half-arsed, high-strung, low-bred family, then casually capsized himself, but left us all drowning (now they don’t teach you that at the Sea Scouts, do they?).”
I must have read it again and again, trying it aloud, as fast as I could. The cadence is amazing. Just the way the words flow together makes me happy. It doesn't hurt that the fellow described reminds me of an idiot I'm still trying to get over.
A great coming-of-age story with such an unique personal voice and, again, a great way with words. I stumbled upon this while searching the pitiful English language selection at my local library and I'm really happy I did so.
November 22, 2011
Ok this novel really deserves a 3 1/2. I toyed with giving it four stars but it wasn't quite there. Barker's writing style is still fantastic but the story isn't as bizarre and enchanting as Darkmans. In a way, this is more like a weird feminine John Irving-esque sort of novel where the British family of misfits are all named after Thurber dogs and seem like the kind of people who will always struggle to find their place in this world. While the mother goes galavanting across American prisons marketing her anal probe, the rest of the family in England houses a South African who doesn't want to serve in the military. This is set in the 80s and the plot really centers around this farcical series of tricks played upon the guest and the main character. It's fun but it doesn't leave your head spinning with quite the same vigor as I'd like.
October 12, 2016
Like Wes Anderson done right, an anarchic and riotously funny story that isn't nearly as much about growing up as it is about reflecting on that time years later as an adult and desperately trying to make sense of any of it. The narrator's low boredom threshold and penchant for wild digressions fuel the best parts of the book. I could have done with a less sudden ending and epilogue, but in their own way the final paragraphs are quietly devastating.
April 13, 2021
Not much to say about this one. It was mostly fun to read but the dripping satire became tedious over long sessions. Didn't leave me with any resounding thought or feeling, other than I'm surprised by how put-off I was by each character. It was a bit like walking into an elementary school classroom full of kids being unapologetically weird and realising you are socially doomed because you don't want to be friends with any of them.
July 28, 2010
I've read most of Nicola Barker's novels and usually really enjoy the emphasis on dialogue and their failure to follow proper novel rules. At first, I thought this might be the exception. The narrator is a very annoying, misfit 16 year old girl, with all the loudness, exaggeration, self-centredness and self-pity that that entails. Once, I was drawn in, however, her voice worked perfectly.
July 13, 2012
I'd love to meet Nicola Barker. Her stories are so full of cleverly crafted weirdness - scenarios, characters. This was so funny in parts. A teenage girl narrates the story of her odd family over the course of one summer. Best opening line:
'It was during those boiled dry, bile-ridden, shit-ripped, god-foresaken early-bird years of the nineteen eighties.'
'It was during those boiled dry, bile-ridden, shit-ripped, god-foresaken early-bird years of the nineteen eighties.'
August 29, 2013
Five Miles From Outer Hope is technically not my type of book but I first read it when I was 14 and it's stuck with me since. It's the book I read every few months. It's my go to comforter when I'm in a bad mood. This is the book that makes everything better. For me, that is. I love it.
May 29, 2015
Medve -- 16, 6'3", pottymouth -- wrangles with hormones, siblings and a crush on a AWOL South African. Read like an unhinged 'I Capture the Castle'. More of a character piece than anything else, felt a bit pointless? I think I'm enjoying Barker's later stuff more than the early stuff.
September 2, 2007
I loved this one.
The characters were quirky but likable. It was funny and intelligent. It was pretty much everything I like a book to be.
The characters were quirky but likable. It was funny and intelligent. It was pretty much everything I like a book to be.
September 6, 2009
had trouble with the narrative voice in this one, but it all comes together in the end. probably the Barker i've liked the least though.
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July 2, 2014Have to give up. Adjective overload. I should have tried one of her others.
September 16, 2014
I loved this book! It was hilarious and slightly bonkers.
August 1, 2016
So horribly unreadable I had to detour from my commute to go to WHS for a new book
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews