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TonyInterruptor
'Is this honest? Are we all being honest here?'
You couldn't really call the man soon to be christened TonyInterruptor a heckler, but he seems to feel an unquenchable urge to disrupt and interrupt live cultural events. Who is he? What does he want? Why does he indulge in behaviour that violates the social contract?
After just such a public interruption goes viral, a small group of characters determine to find out the answers to these question, and end up learning more than they might possibly like about music, culture, relationships, Art, integrity, each other and their own endlessly disrupted and disruptable selves.
As profound as it is exuberant, TonyInterruptor is a comic masterpiece that traces the aftermath of a single event as it reverberates through the online world and its characters' lives, upending everything in its wake and posing fundamental questions about authenticity, the internet, love and, yes, truth.
You couldn't really call the man soon to be christened TonyInterruptor a heckler, but he seems to feel an unquenchable urge to disrupt and interrupt live cultural events. Who is he? What does he want? Why does he indulge in behaviour that violates the social contract?
After just such a public interruption goes viral, a small group of characters determine to find out the answers to these question, and end up learning more than they might possibly like about music, culture, relationships, Art, integrity, each other and their own endlessly disrupted and disruptable selves.
As profound as it is exuberant, TonyInterruptor is a comic masterpiece that traces the aftermath of a single event as it reverberates through the online world and its characters' lives, upending everything in its wake and posing fundamental questions about authenticity, the internet, love and, yes, truth.
- GenresFictionContemporary
211 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2025
14 people are currently reading
1077 people want to read
About the author
Nicola Barker
34 books305 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 - 30 of 62 reviews
April 20, 2025
Nicola Barker gives us a hilarious story about the pointless strife for authenticity, a Künstlerroman turned comedy of manners in the digital age - and all that in her super-recognizable voice. Everything starts with a free jazz concert starring trumpet player Sasha Keyes, whose show is, you guessed it, interrupted by art curator John Lincoln Braithwaite, who stands up an inquires: "Is this honest? Are we being honest here?" - which is filmed by teenager India Shore. Backstage, Sasha is furious about the incident, calling John (whom he doesn't know personally) "some dick-weed, small-town TonyInterruptor" and telling music professor Fi Kinebuchi who plays autoharp, lyre and guitar in the band to "shut the fuck up" - which is filmed by the band's pianist Simo Treen. Needless to say, both clips go viral.
What ensues is a butterfly effect that shakes up the lives of many of the rather big cast of characters, from India, her father and her stepmom (a professor for architecture and a lawyer), to Sasha, Fi, of course John, and some minor figures. The digital virality and how it functions is in fact the least interesting part and mainly employed for laughs and as a catalyst, it's more about questioning the line between life and art in the sense that we are all constantly playing, signaling, performing. And maybe that isn't so bad: Life is a work of art. A central conundrum the characters ponder is the tension between intuition/improvisation and control/concept: Is it all about the sprezzatura? The characters hold different standpoints regarding these issues, and they are in constant debate about them.
According to those themes, Barker refers to all kinds of art, from Yayoi Kusama (India has a sibling with special needs) over J.D. Salinger to Anders Danielsen Lie. In the text, the expression TonyInterruptor is attributed to Lionel Asbo: State of England by Martin Amis (which Barker reviewed here) and / or Mark E. Smith. It is great fun to read how the art serves as expression of positions, how viewpoints clash, and, most importantly, how relationships shift, all triggered by John's heckling.
The second, shorter part of the novel is set three years after the incident, and the many relationship constellations are now different - and it feels like this constant change, that is also represented in new attitudes towards making art, will continue. Barker has managed to package the debates, that do have heavily theoretical backgrounds, in a light, propulsive, funny, engaging, and highly intelligent story, and it's such a pleasure to read.
You can already read an excerpt of the novel here.
What ensues is a butterfly effect that shakes up the lives of many of the rather big cast of characters, from India, her father and her stepmom (a professor for architecture and a lawyer), to Sasha, Fi, of course John, and some minor figures. The digital virality and how it functions is in fact the least interesting part and mainly employed for laughs and as a catalyst, it's more about questioning the line between life and art in the sense that we are all constantly playing, signaling, performing. And maybe that isn't so bad: Life is a work of art. A central conundrum the characters ponder is the tension between intuition/improvisation and control/concept: Is it all about the sprezzatura? The characters hold different standpoints regarding these issues, and they are in constant debate about them.
According to those themes, Barker refers to all kinds of art, from Yayoi Kusama (India has a sibling with special needs) over J.D. Salinger to Anders Danielsen Lie. In the text, the expression TonyInterruptor is attributed to Lionel Asbo: State of England by Martin Amis (which Barker reviewed here) and / or Mark E. Smith. It is great fun to read how the art serves as expression of positions, how viewpoints clash, and, most importantly, how relationships shift, all triggered by John's heckling.
The second, shorter part of the novel is set three years after the incident, and the many relationship constellations are now different - and it feels like this constant change, that is also represented in new attitudes towards making art, will continue. Barker has managed to package the debates, that do have heavily theoretical backgrounds, in a light, propulsive, funny, engaging, and highly intelligent story, and it's such a pleasure to read.
You can already read an excerpt of the novel here.
November 14, 2025
Opening with an epigraph from Mark E. Smith, Barker’s new novel primes itself for brilliance and, for the most part, serves up skibidi brilliance with extra croutons. Begin plot summary, plot summary, plot summary, end plot summary. The freeform bounciness of her earlier (more infuriating) novels is back in a more contained form, as Barker hops between the POVs of her self-indulgent artist personnel, each of whom has found their relationships snapping in the wake of the titular heckler’s utterance (see plot summary). Rapid-fire probings on the nature of honesty in artistic performance, the changing manner in which we consume and absorb art in the age of distraction, and the searching question as to whether TonyInterruptor is a the name of a Fall song, keep the pell-mell antics of this loose, improvisatory novel engaging. A more curt and aimless second part means the novel ends with a shrug, not unlike most 1990s Fall LPs. Read TonyInterruptor-ah!
August 20, 2025
Nicola Barker is one of those novelists who has an immense, cemented following. TonyInterruptor is her latest novel, bearing her signature cleverness and exploring the birth of a viral moment with a long-lasting, far-reaching voice that shouts and screams in your ears, reverberating the cochlea with a cacophonic banshee scream. The premise reflects simplicity made complex through Barker’s narrative style and prose. Sasha Keyes is a prominent jazz trumpet soloist performing for a crowd of jazz music lovers when suddenly a man with a deep, hypnotic, honest voice interrupts Keyes’s solo improvisation, asking if all this is honest; if Sasha Keyes is honest. What follows is the viralisation of a tweet/social media post featuring TonyInterruptor’s sincere question. People are differently affected by this question (are you being honest?), creating a series of events connected to that viral moment. TonyInterruptor is a commentary on sincerity, honesty towards others and especially ourselves. The characterisation is superb and remains the bridge of the novel. Through much babbling and meandering, jumping from character to character, Barker explores themes of authenticity, ownership, social media, adultery, neurodivergency, and many others. This is a book full of ideas, commentaries, and points of view that convey the author’s intention, capturing the essence of a jazz band (much happens at the same time at different paces, forming into jazz music). Some old tropes made my eyes roll, and too much wordiness to make a point, and perhaps this was the point. I honestly enjoyed Barker’s narrative style, but I hoped for a more innovative and engaging novel. I am still not sure I enjoyed reading this book, and mirroring my first sentence in this review, this book could have benefited from more concise prose. TonyInterruptor will please many readers of literary fiction who enjoy witty/sharp narrative, with unlikable characters that worry too much, have too much to say, and spend more time discussing the whys instead of acting upon them.
Disclaimer: I received an Advance Reader Copy (ARC) of this book from the publisher Granta via NetGalley in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.
Disclaimer: I received an Advance Reader Copy (ARC) of this book from the publisher Granta via NetGalley in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.
July 11, 2025
4,5
I always enjoy reading Nicola Barker, but I admit it's not always easy and it took me some time to really get into 'TonyInterruptor.' It seemed too highbrow or intellectual to me at first, but once I got used to the style, the original play with words, the smart discussions and rants, etc I was hooked. It reminded me of Nell Zink's latest novel 'Sister Europe,’ just as smart and funny.
Barker mainly explores art here, its ideas and meaning, and whether it can be honest or real at all. The same with people: are they truthful or are they pussy-footing (my new favorite word :-)? We are all flawed, but does giving in to that make us real and honest?
This was great and interesting, sometimes hilarious and it certainly made me look at the actor Anders Danielsen Lie differently.
Thank you Granta and Netgalley UK for the ARC
I always enjoy reading Nicola Barker, but I admit it's not always easy and it took me some time to really get into 'TonyInterruptor.' It seemed too highbrow or intellectual to me at first, but once I got used to the style, the original play with words, the smart discussions and rants, etc I was hooked. It reminded me of Nell Zink's latest novel 'Sister Europe,’ just as smart and funny.
Barker mainly explores art here, its ideas and meaning, and whether it can be honest or real at all. The same with people: are they truthful or are they pussy-footing (my new favorite word :-)? We are all flawed, but does giving in to that make us real and honest?
This was great and interesting, sometimes hilarious and it certainly made me look at the actor Anders Danielsen Lie differently.
Thank you Granta and Netgalley UK for the ARC
November 28, 2025
Longlisted for the 2026 Gordon Burn Prize
'Shore is an architect', John Lincoln Braithwaite finally volunteers (perhaps relenting slightly), 'and Kinebuchi is a musician, so it makes perfect sense that their individual creative disciplines should find concorde... find harmony ... around the idea of 'intuitive constructions. All good art is about building things intuitively, be that a life, a museum, a city, a story, a song ..?'
TonyInterruptor is Nicola Barker's first novel since the 2019 I Am Sovereign, or arguably since the 2017 Goldsmiths Prize winning H(a)ppy, as she said that work 'destroyed the novel (as a form) for The Author' and led to the sneeze of a novella that I Am Sovereign.
The novel opens with a man interrupting a jazz concert in a Kentish cathedral town (presumably a fictionalised Canterbury) by Sasha Keyes and His Ensemble:
He pointed at Sasha Keyes who had just begun what he (Sasha Keyes) felt to be a particularly devastating improvised trumpet solo, and added, almost pityingly, ‘You, especially.’
The interruptor had a good voice, a strong voice. It was fundamentally classless but with the slightest suggestion of northern grit. It had a pleasing timbre: low, grave, sincere. And the line was delivered in such a way that it seemed at once spontaneous but considered, indignant but measured. It was heartfelt. There was . . . somehow or other, there was soul.
(a longer extract can be found at Granta)
The interruption and words spoken, although missed by much of the audience are filmed and uploaded to Snapchat by a teenage girl in the audience, India Shore.
And when Sasha and his Ensemble (the Ensemble didn’t consider themselves to be ‘his’ or ‘an ensemble’, so much as a group of individuals who just happened to be playing together, several of whom actively despised each other) discuss back stage what was said, he gives the man a label, and also tells his female bandmate and ex-wife Fi Kinebuchi to 'Shut the fuck up' when she tries to adds her own musings.
‘What the fuck? Some random, fucking nobody,’ Sasha snarls, ‘some dickweed, small-town TonyInterruptor . . .’ He temporarily runs out of invective because his levels of upsetness are too profound to be fully encapsulated by mere words (or ‘worms’ as Larry Frome likes to refer to them – semi-seriously).
The ensemble's pianist Simo had videod the exchange and uploads it, and the #TonyInterruptor both to his own Snapchat but also as a comment on India's post, and the whole goes viral.
'TonyInterruptor' himself, when tracked down by India's stepmother Lambert Shore (who finds herself oddly infatuated with him believing he resembles the actor Anders Danielsen Lie) proves to be an art curator, John Lincoln Braithwaite, whose mother used all 5 syllables of his name from when he was a child and generally an unassuming individual:
He reads real books. John Lincoln Braithwaite reads real books methodically and respectfully, from beginning to end (although there will sometimes be the slamming down of books accompanied by muttered expostulations or sharp exhalations - the odd well-chosen swear word - the occasional cluck or tut). He nevertheless reads books from cover to cover. He does not flip to the final page in a sudden moment of impatience. He is disciplined. He is respectful of books in the way that he is respectful of people and in the way that he is not respectful of live music performances.
Why is this?
While the novel describes the incident as The First Interruption ... It became a little piece of Performance Lore; a source of ferocious interest/contention/amusement/debate across at least three creative disciplines, the subject of four books – this being the third – and the root of approximately 2.5 million tweets and memes, the novel doesn't explore the impact on the wider cultural scene, but rather the repurcussions on the lives and self-perceptions of those involved, connected, perhaps reflecting the provincial nature of the town, surprisingly closely.
The story particularly centres around the Shore family - India; Lambert, India's father and a professor of Architecture at the local Christ Church University, where Fi Kinebuchi also lectures on music; Mallory his second wife, and India's stepmum, formally a mature student in law at the University; and Lambert and Mallory's 8 yo daughter Gunn, who has special needs.
The second part, and last 20%, of the novel, Intuitive Constructions takes us around 3 years after the incident, when the dynamic amongst the different characters has changed significantly, including the making of some additionally rather accidental art.
The novel comes with an epigraph from Mark E. Smith, lead vocalist of the band The Fall, and most people's reaction to the #tag is that it sounds like a Fall song, Mallory taking it one step further in a passage which hits on the one of the novel's themes of intellectual property in a social media age - Sasha is rather proud of his #tag, if annoyed by the incident, and unhappy that it seems to be credited to Simo and, to an extent, India - vs. collective ownership:
"Lionel Asbo, Mallory hits him.
'Sorry?' Sasha frowns.
'Lionel Asbo, Mallory repeats, 'Remember? The novel? By Martin Amis? Got a mixed reception in ... um ... can't remember..?'
'What?' Sasha frowns.
'You didn't come up with the phrase, Sasha!' Mallory is triumphant, 'TonyInterruptor. It isn't yours. And it isn't Mark E Smith's, either. It's Martin's. Can't you hear it? Lionel Asbo?
TonyInterruptor? The rhythm? The symmetry? The implicit snideness? You simply improvised on Martin's original. You adapted his phrase. You unconsciously adapted Martin's phrase?
'Um... Sasha is processing. He continues to frown.
'And who knows, maybe Martin was originally channelling a Fall song? Maybe Mark E Smith was hidden away in there somewhere? It seems improbable... but who cares? The important thing is that it isn't yours, Mallory repeats, 'It was already floating around in the ether like so much cultural flotsam. It belongs to the collective unconscious. It's ours.
Enjoyable, highly readable and perhaps more profound, on reflection, than the quick read the text encourages would suggest. 3.5 stars rounded to 4 for now.
Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC.
'Shore is an architect', John Lincoln Braithwaite finally volunteers (perhaps relenting slightly), 'and Kinebuchi is a musician, so it makes perfect sense that their individual creative disciplines should find concorde... find harmony ... around the idea of 'intuitive constructions. All good art is about building things intuitively, be that a life, a museum, a city, a story, a song ..?'
TonyInterruptor is Nicola Barker's first novel since the 2019 I Am Sovereign, or arguably since the 2017 Goldsmiths Prize winning H(a)ppy, as she said that work 'destroyed the novel (as a form) for The Author' and led to the sneeze of a novella that I Am Sovereign.
The novel opens with a man interrupting a jazz concert in a Kentish cathedral town (presumably a fictionalised Canterbury) by Sasha Keyes and His Ensemble:
He pointed at Sasha Keyes who had just begun what he (Sasha Keyes) felt to be a particularly devastating improvised trumpet solo, and added, almost pityingly, ‘You, especially.’
The interruptor had a good voice, a strong voice. It was fundamentally classless but with the slightest suggestion of northern grit. It had a pleasing timbre: low, grave, sincere. And the line was delivered in such a way that it seemed at once spontaneous but considered, indignant but measured. It was heartfelt. There was . . . somehow or other, there was soul.
(a longer extract can be found at Granta)
The interruption and words spoken, although missed by much of the audience are filmed and uploaded to Snapchat by a teenage girl in the audience, India Shore.
And when Sasha and his Ensemble (the Ensemble didn’t consider themselves to be ‘his’ or ‘an ensemble’, so much as a group of individuals who just happened to be playing together, several of whom actively despised each other) discuss back stage what was said, he gives the man a label, and also tells his female bandmate and ex-wife Fi Kinebuchi to 'Shut the fuck up' when she tries to adds her own musings.
‘What the fuck? Some random, fucking nobody,’ Sasha snarls, ‘some dickweed, small-town TonyInterruptor . . .’ He temporarily runs out of invective because his levels of upsetness are too profound to be fully encapsulated by mere words (or ‘worms’ as Larry Frome likes to refer to them – semi-seriously).
The ensemble's pianist Simo had videod the exchange and uploads it, and the #TonyInterruptor both to his own Snapchat but also as a comment on India's post, and the whole goes viral.
'TonyInterruptor' himself, when tracked down by India's stepmother Lambert Shore (who finds herself oddly infatuated with him believing he resembles the actor Anders Danielsen Lie) proves to be an art curator, John Lincoln Braithwaite, whose mother used all 5 syllables of his name from when he was a child and generally an unassuming individual:
He reads real books. John Lincoln Braithwaite reads real books methodically and respectfully, from beginning to end (although there will sometimes be the slamming down of books accompanied by muttered expostulations or sharp exhalations - the odd well-chosen swear word - the occasional cluck or tut). He nevertheless reads books from cover to cover. He does not flip to the final page in a sudden moment of impatience. He is disciplined. He is respectful of books in the way that he is respectful of people and in the way that he is not respectful of live music performances.
Why is this?
While the novel describes the incident as The First Interruption ... It became a little piece of Performance Lore; a source of ferocious interest/contention/amusement/debate across at least three creative disciplines, the subject of four books – this being the third – and the root of approximately 2.5 million tweets and memes, the novel doesn't explore the impact on the wider cultural scene, but rather the repurcussions on the lives and self-perceptions of those involved, connected, perhaps reflecting the provincial nature of the town, surprisingly closely.
The story particularly centres around the Shore family - India; Lambert, India's father and a professor of Architecture at the local Christ Church University, where Fi Kinebuchi also lectures on music; Mallory his second wife, and India's stepmum, formally a mature student in law at the University; and Lambert and Mallory's 8 yo daughter Gunn, who has special needs.
The second part, and last 20%, of the novel, Intuitive Constructions takes us around 3 years after the incident, when the dynamic amongst the different characters has changed significantly, including the making of some additionally rather accidental art.
The novel comes with an epigraph from Mark E. Smith, lead vocalist of the band The Fall, and most people's reaction to the #tag is that it sounds like a Fall song, Mallory taking it one step further in a passage which hits on the one of the novel's themes of intellectual property in a social media age - Sasha is rather proud of his #tag, if annoyed by the incident, and unhappy that it seems to be credited to Simo and, to an extent, India - vs. collective ownership:
"Lionel Asbo, Mallory hits him.
'Sorry?' Sasha frowns.
'Lionel Asbo, Mallory repeats, 'Remember? The novel? By Martin Amis? Got a mixed reception in ... um ... can't remember..?'
'What?' Sasha frowns.
'You didn't come up with the phrase, Sasha!' Mallory is triumphant, 'TonyInterruptor. It isn't yours. And it isn't Mark E Smith's, either. It's Martin's. Can't you hear it? Lionel Asbo?
TonyInterruptor? The rhythm? The symmetry? The implicit snideness? You simply improvised on Martin's original. You adapted his phrase. You unconsciously adapted Martin's phrase?
'Um... Sasha is processing. He continues to frown.
'And who knows, maybe Martin was originally channelling a Fall song? Maybe Mark E Smith was hidden away in there somewhere? It seems improbable... but who cares? The important thing is that it isn't yours, Mallory repeats, 'It was already floating around in the ether like so much cultural flotsam. It belongs to the collective unconscious. It's ours.
Enjoyable, highly readable and perhaps more profound, on reflection, than the quick read the text encourages would suggest. 3.5 stars rounded to 4 for now.
Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC.
August 15, 2025
TonyInterruptor is a short novel that delves into the lives of various artists and their families following an interruption at a jazz gig by Sasha Keyes. Each of the characters undergoes some soul-searching and changes throughout the book leading to some surprising pairings.
I'm afraid this book left me cold and bewildered. I didn't find any of it funny except the first interruption. I suppose the people are meant to be caricatures but none of it landed for me.
I confess to having misread the blurb and thought the story would focus on the original "heckler" but instead it probed into the complicated lives of those affected by the interruption. I'm afraid it did nothing for me.
Thanks to Netgalley and Granta Publications for the advance review copy.
I'm afraid this book left me cold and bewildered. I didn't find any of it funny except the first interruption. I suppose the people are meant to be caricatures but none of it landed for me.
I confess to having misread the blurb and thought the story would focus on the original "heckler" but instead it probed into the complicated lives of those affected by the interruption. I'm afraid it did nothing for me.
Thanks to Netgalley and Granta Publications for the advance review copy.
July 29, 2025
Publication date: 14th August 2025. Prediction: this could very well make the Booker Prize longlist (or even shortlist). Why? It's very 'literary', centring around a moment in an improvised jazz concert where a man (John Braithwaite/#TonyInterrupter) stands up and asks 'are we being honest?' India Shore, one of the band (in the loosest sense) member's daughters is filming the entire thing and it goes out to her quarter of a million followers on Instagram, and the whole thing goes viral. What follows is a meandering exploration of what happens after this viral moment, and the ramifications for a surprisingly wide number of people.
Why does this make it Booker material? Well, like I said: it's 'literary' (lots of philosophical ramblings that go nowhere). It's 'clever' - making a book centre around a single moment (as well as the supposedly 'clever' conversations). It's hyper current, attempting to capture something of the online zeitgeist of snapshot events being endowed with more 'meaning' than they ought to have. It's trying 'something different', although it doesn't really feel that different at all...
I think if you've read this far you'll probably have surmised (correctly) that I didn't enjoy this book. There was some interesting characterisation, a few micro isolated funny moments and... a whole lot very heavily-worded chaotic, well, filler. The interesting characters/relationships did not make up for the 'freestyle' and 'improvisational' splurge of writing that made up the majority of the book.
Critics and fans will no doubt argue that I've missed the point, that this is 'conceptual art' and 'post post modern' and that kind of thing. Call me old-fashioned, but I like to enjoy my books as well as see that there is something 'interesting' about them.
Why does this make it Booker material? Well, like I said: it's 'literary' (lots of philosophical ramblings that go nowhere). It's 'clever' - making a book centre around a single moment (as well as the supposedly 'clever' conversations). It's hyper current, attempting to capture something of the online zeitgeist of snapshot events being endowed with more 'meaning' than they ought to have. It's trying 'something different', although it doesn't really feel that different at all...
I think if you've read this far you'll probably have surmised (correctly) that I didn't enjoy this book. There was some interesting characterisation, a few micro isolated funny moments and... a whole lot very heavily-worded chaotic, well, filler. The interesting characters/relationships did not make up for the 'freestyle' and 'improvisational' splurge of writing that made up the majority of the book.
Critics and fans will no doubt argue that I've missed the point, that this is 'conceptual art' and 'post post modern' and that kind of thing. Call me old-fashioned, but I like to enjoy my books as well as see that there is something 'interesting' about them.
Read
April 23, 2025The Queen is back! I've enjoyed every single Barker novel I've read, and I've read almost every single one. I'm tempted to call what attracts me to her novels a kind of vitalism (inorganic, as Deleuze would have it) that crackles and sizzles from every page. I don't necessarily mean the liveliness of the characters and the stories and the narrative drive, though those are quite vibrant, too. What I am going for is on a more formal level, even the organization of the page - lines, paragraphs, CAPITALS, even color (as in H(A)PPY). Everything works to construct an effect of liveliness and animation that gives Barker's novels that special feeling we love in her books. To put on a more theoretical hat, this vitalism of Barker's is also what I'm more critical of, as I slowly but surely move away from the (post-)Deleuzian vitalist insistence on joy and toward the deintensification and cessation of affect (cf. The Ahuman Manifesto: Activism for the End of the Anthropocene. Damn you, Patricia!
July 26, 2025
Tony Interruptor is an odd little book. It is highly intellectual and incredibly smart in its humour, playing on words and alluding to artists all around. I am sure I missed many connections. For want of a better word, it is the very definition of highbrow literature.
The starting point is a man who interrupts a jazz concert by asking, "Is this honest? Are we all being honest here?" From there, a TikTok video is created, a hashtag is coined (#TonyInterruptor), and a number of lives are turned upside down by a series of decisions as well as discussions about art, identity, authenticity and improvisation. I think an interest in art and the theory of art helps massively to enjoy this novel, because nothing really happens. People just talk, then talk some more and reflect on what they said in stream of consciousness style. The characters are close to caricatures, and the final part of the book takes this a step further by juming foreward three years and examining the fundamental changes to several lives caused by one act on one evening.
I enjoyed and appreciated the novel, even though it had no great emotional impact on me, as the characters were just too extreme. I was entertained though - despite my aversion to stream-of-consciousness writing. So, in short, a book that will be loved by the right audience, and might vex anybody else.
The starting point is a man who interrupts a jazz concert by asking, "Is this honest? Are we all being honest here?" From there, a TikTok video is created, a hashtag is coined (#TonyInterruptor), and a number of lives are turned upside down by a series of decisions as well as discussions about art, identity, authenticity and improvisation. I think an interest in art and the theory of art helps massively to enjoy this novel, because nothing really happens. People just talk, then talk some more and reflect on what they said in stream of consciousness style. The characters are close to caricatures, and the final part of the book takes this a step further by juming foreward three years and examining the fundamental changes to several lives caused by one act on one evening.
I enjoyed and appreciated the novel, even though it had no great emotional impact on me, as the characters were just too extreme. I was entertained though - despite my aversion to stream-of-consciousness writing. So, in short, a book that will be loved by the right audience, and might vex anybody else.
June 2, 2025
I am a Nicola Barker fan so I was delighted to receive an ARC of her latest book TonyInterruptor (thanks Granta Publications and Netgalley!) and it didn't disappoint.
I don't think I can describe the plot as it barely exists (and anyway I don't like reviews that tell you too much about the plot, spoils the anticipation) but the story hinges on a interruption to a live musical performance and the way in which this reverberates in the lives of those involved. (You can read the beginning of the book here: https://granta.com/tonyinterruptor/)
The characters leap off the page through their conversations. Nicola Barker is very good at writing dialogue and this is very authentic, with all the pauses and interruptions. (It would make an excellent play or film.) The conversations are quite profound in places, dealing with questions around the creation of art but they are also often screamingly funny, and I really like the way she breaks the fourth wall with occasional authorial asides about the characters and their behaviour. Mallory is a particularly intriguing character who at first seems peripheral but her lengthy internal monologue is a wonderful stream of consciousness passage and she also has a later conversation in which she is high on medication in hospital which is very funny. The ending is perfectly judged but I still want to know what happens next.
Barker plays with words very effectively and entertainingly: ... 'preposterous' (which is surely just 'ridiculous' with hidden shoe lifts')... And how does she conjure up such wonderful names for her characters? I had to look up some of names scattered about to find out if they were genuine people or her brilliant invention. And I chuckled on discovering that the musician Sasha Keyes was the son of a piano teacher named... Marian Keyes...
I was hooked from the first reference to Salinger's Raise High The Roof Beam, Carpenters, a great favourite of mine and there are many references to other works - I often wonder how much I have missed with Barker's work, how many allusions have passed me by.
I rarely reread fiction but I am looking forward to renewing my acquaintance with these characters. Highly recommended.
I don't think I can describe the plot as it barely exists (and anyway I don't like reviews that tell you too much about the plot, spoils the anticipation) but the story hinges on a interruption to a live musical performance and the way in which this reverberates in the lives of those involved. (You can read the beginning of the book here: https://granta.com/tonyinterruptor/)
The characters leap off the page through their conversations. Nicola Barker is very good at writing dialogue and this is very authentic, with all the pauses and interruptions. (It would make an excellent play or film.) The conversations are quite profound in places, dealing with questions around the creation of art but they are also often screamingly funny, and I really like the way she breaks the fourth wall with occasional authorial asides about the characters and their behaviour. Mallory is a particularly intriguing character who at first seems peripheral but her lengthy internal monologue is a wonderful stream of consciousness passage and she also has a later conversation in which she is high on medication in hospital which is very funny. The ending is perfectly judged but I still want to know what happens next.
Barker plays with words very effectively and entertainingly: ... 'preposterous' (which is surely just 'ridiculous' with hidden shoe lifts')... And how does she conjure up such wonderful names for her characters? I had to look up some of names scattered about to find out if they were genuine people or her brilliant invention. And I chuckled on discovering that the musician Sasha Keyes was the son of a piano teacher named... Marian Keyes...
I was hooked from the first reference to Salinger's Raise High The Roof Beam, Carpenters, a great favourite of mine and there are many references to other works - I often wonder how much I have missed with Barker's work, how many allusions have passed me by.
I rarely reread fiction but I am looking forward to renewing my acquaintance with these characters. Highly recommended.
October 31, 2025
What a brilliant story told with Nicola Barker’s customary pizazz! Following on from my total immersion in Darkmans I was keen to read the most recent output of the author: it met all my expectations. The style is irreverent and inherently questioning of those liberal arty values that we ‘all’ as twenty first century sophisticates take for granted.
The style comes with Barker’s trademark scattered layout across the page with highlights in capitals in case we miss the point. In contrast to the twisty narratives of her previous books this is a fairly straightforward examination of the fallout from a simple heckler in a jazz concert: an unidentified man stands up and says ‘ Is this honest? Are we all being honest here?… Especially you? (Pointing at Sacha the lead musician and talented trumpeter). This goes viral as it is being videoed by a teenager in the audience, which is put together on social media with a very non PC clip from backstage added by a slightly disgruntled band member.
Everyone turns out to be interrelated: socially, legally, sexually, genetically and the interruption has a seismic effect on several relationships and family dynamics. There is a fascinating coda dated three years after the apocryphal concert, ends sort of tied up but as always with Barker lots left unknown and to be speculated upon.
Overall an interesting book and one I could recommend.
The style comes with Barker’s trademark scattered layout across the page with highlights in capitals in case we miss the point. In contrast to the twisty narratives of her previous books this is a fairly straightforward examination of the fallout from a simple heckler in a jazz concert: an unidentified man stands up and says ‘ Is this honest? Are we all being honest here?… Especially you? (Pointing at Sacha the lead musician and talented trumpeter). This goes viral as it is being videoed by a teenager in the audience, which is put together on social media with a very non PC clip from backstage added by a slightly disgruntled band member.
Everyone turns out to be interrelated: socially, legally, sexually, genetically and the interruption has a seismic effect on several relationships and family dynamics. There is a fascinating coda dated three years after the apocryphal concert, ends sort of tied up but as always with Barker lots left unknown and to be speculated upon.
Overall an interesting book and one I could recommend.
August 17, 2025
TonyInterruptor is a novel of ideas. At its heart is an interrogation of honesty. Beginning with a heckler questioning the honesty of an improv jazz gig before expanding into a broader examination of honesty in life, relationships, art, architecture etc
What I most love about Nicola Barker’s novels is how recognisable they are. Her characters often feel like they’re all having the same collective existential crisis triggered by some seemingly small event. Even her writing on the page is often entirely recognisable: a jumble of italics, questioning pauses, repetitions, SHOUTY STATEMENTS, and extensive punctuation. Her writing makes me slow down to really savour what it is she’s actually saying.
I also love that she makes me lose sense of narrative time. I’m sure that probably pisses some readers off. But her novels become their own little time warp for me. Here a whole chapter can go by in SHOUTY CAPS of one person musing on a single thing. The honesty here isn’t the tired trope of the conventional narrative arc, it’s in the author examining the very act of why she’s putting these words down on the page.
What I most love about Nicola Barker’s novels is how recognisable they are. Her characters often feel like they’re all having the same collective existential crisis triggered by some seemingly small event. Even her writing on the page is often entirely recognisable: a jumble of italics, questioning pauses, repetitions, SHOUTY STATEMENTS, and extensive punctuation. Her writing makes me slow down to really savour what it is she’s actually saying.
I also love that she makes me lose sense of narrative time. I’m sure that probably pisses some readers off. But her novels become their own little time warp for me. Here a whole chapter can go by in SHOUTY CAPS of one person musing on a single thing. The honesty here isn’t the tired trope of the conventional narrative arc, it’s in the author examining the very act of why she’s putting these words down on the page.
August 14, 2025
The style almost stream of consciousness with punctuation, eccentric, literary – plenty of academics and intellectuals demonstrating their prowess with the wonderful world of words. The storyline somewhat obscure till quite a way into the book, there are some splendid social observations – adults versus children/teens for instance – and readers will love it or hate it.
September 3, 2025
Interesting satire surrounding the butterfly effect of a social media incident. Written in an odd style with rambling meditations on various themes, but a good turn of phrase. Enjoyable.
September 10, 2025
This is the first book that I’ve read by Nicola Barker. The novel is written in a style that I found different and awkward at first. However, the novel content and humour soon pulled me in to enjoy the events that follow the question raised at a contemporary jazz concert “Is this honest? Are we all being honest here?”. The musician Sasha Keyes responds to the question. Naturally this was recorded and released into the world where the subject is debated on social media. A serious book that is humorous and a joy to read.
May 5, 2025
4.5 ⭐️
Thank you to NetGalley and Granta Publications for providing this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
This was a superbly witty philosophical discourse for modern times. Among other themes, it examines the butterfly effect from a couple of moments caught on camera that go viral after a musical performance is interrupted by an unusual heckler.
This was far more profound than I expected it to be, seamlessly blending considerations of art, music, family dynamics, psychological awakenings and, above all else, honesty. This actually gave me the experience that I had wanted from Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, which made me feel like I was back at University and so felt like a chore. This was REAL. Vibrantly, bizarrely real. It stopped me in my tracks, page after page.
This will not be for everyone, especially those who need a cohesive plot in their modern lit fic (which I don't, though I do in other genres) or loveable characters. The structure is really a series of vignettes rather than a straightforward narrative. An exploration of themes through a beautifully flawed, human lens.
My gripe? I wanted even more exploration and messiness, because the writing was so moreish. It was meandering, overloaded with asides, sharply witty and deeply thought-provoking at the same time. Books that can make me laugh and also cut straight though into my psyche really are very special. This was an absolute triumph.
Thank you to NetGalley and Granta Publications for providing this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
This was a superbly witty philosophical discourse for modern times. Among other themes, it examines the butterfly effect from a couple of moments caught on camera that go viral after a musical performance is interrupted by an unusual heckler.
This was far more profound than I expected it to be, seamlessly blending considerations of art, music, family dynamics, psychological awakenings and, above all else, honesty. This actually gave me the experience that I had wanted from Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, which made me feel like I was back at University and so felt like a chore. This was REAL. Vibrantly, bizarrely real. It stopped me in my tracks, page after page.
This will not be for everyone, especially those who need a cohesive plot in their modern lit fic (which I don't, though I do in other genres) or loveable characters. The structure is really a series of vignettes rather than a straightforward narrative. An exploration of themes through a beautifully flawed, human lens.
My gripe? I wanted even more exploration and messiness, because the writing was so moreish. It was meandering, overloaded with asides, sharply witty and deeply thought-provoking at the same time. Books that can make me laugh and also cut straight though into my psyche really are very special. This was an absolute triumph.
December 25, 2025
“Engage with the true... true substance of the thing? Stop framing everything in terms of ART and IDEAS and MEANING, stop communicating only in GESTURES and SYMBOLS, stop always making everything so ... so INTELLECTUAL, SO META, and just... just ... for once in your life risk being real?”
.
In a way this quote sums up this book perfectly. It is amusing in parts, the gentle skewering of middle class pretensions around art and culture. It is also I guess pretty smart, perhaps bordering on pretentious?
.
Truth be told, I didn’t get it. Perhaps I’m simply not au fait with this world or fully understanding the concepts outlaid at times in wittily written sentences. It felt like being on the outside of an in-joke. An in-joke from the cool group of kids at school, who like dissecting in infinitesimal ways language, high art and perpetually on the hunt for authenticity.
.
Perhaps it’s those people that the book is gently mocking, a fact that didn’t particularly land with me. It’s all very clever and knowing, a wink and nod. I enjoyed Barker’s quality of writing, and there were parts that did make me chuckle. This just left me a bit cold, alongside adolescent flashbacks of never quite fitting in with the arty cool kids at school.
.
A thank you to granta for expanding my reading horizon and for netgalley opening those doors.
.
In a way this quote sums up this book perfectly. It is amusing in parts, the gentle skewering of middle class pretensions around art and culture. It is also I guess pretty smart, perhaps bordering on pretentious?
.
Truth be told, I didn’t get it. Perhaps I’m simply not au fait with this world or fully understanding the concepts outlaid at times in wittily written sentences. It felt like being on the outside of an in-joke. An in-joke from the cool group of kids at school, who like dissecting in infinitesimal ways language, high art and perpetually on the hunt for authenticity.
.
Perhaps it’s those people that the book is gently mocking, a fact that didn’t particularly land with me. It’s all very clever and knowing, a wink and nod. I enjoyed Barker’s quality of writing, and there were parts that did make me chuckle. This just left me a bit cold, alongside adolescent flashbacks of never quite fitting in with the arty cool kids at school.
.
A thank you to granta for expanding my reading horizon and for netgalley opening those doors.
September 21, 2025
4.5 stars!
Originally Reviewed at World Review of Books
In Nicola Barker’s TonyInterruptor, a short novel, a moment at an improv jazz concert spirals into something much larger. A heckle becomes a viral meme, triggering not only an avalanche of philosophical questions but also a portal into internet virality. The book is chaotic, it throws sharp comedic punches, and this quality sustains because of its extremely eccentric characters. This whole ecosystem of weirdness is propped up by Barker’s singular style, full of sidebar thoughts, bracketed asides, and unfiltered digressions.
‘Is this honest? Are we all being honest here?’
The interruptor had a good voice, a strong voice. It was fundamentally classless but with the slightest suggestion of northern grit. It had a pleasing timbre: low, grave, sincere. And the line was delivered in such a way that it seemed at once spontaneous but considered, indignant but measured. It was heartfelt. There was … somehow or other, there was soul.
What’s especially striking is how the novel demonstrates the very things it discusses. While meditating on authenticity and non-conformity, it embodies those same principles in its structure and voice. A cacophony of arguments rises; about art, authenticity, interpersonal relationships, all of which circle back to the heckler’s refrain: Is this honest? Are we all being honest here? Out of context, the question could mean anything. In the novel, it becomes a spark that ignites everything: the viral clip, the heated backstage debate, the hashtag #TonyInterruptor.
“Insofar as value for money is relevant to Art, that audience–an attentive audience, a great audience–were determined to get it.”
Within that one scene, the book manages to stage comedy, philosophy, and commentary on how ideas mutate in public. From there, the narrative widens, revealing character after eccentric character, as only a literary novel can.
That brings me to a caveat: the writing style does not make for the smoothest reading experience. The thoughts are presented with ellipses, tangents, and constant digressions. After a while, this can feel overwhelming. It’s reasonable to read no more than 20 pages at a stretch, then pause to digest before continuing.
The premise itself is a winner, as it resists any prediction. You cannot guess anything about the characters or the direction of the story. Everyone proves eccentric in their own way. The sheer unpredictability of their actions and dispositions keeps the momentum going, and there is a sense of sleuthing afforded to the reader about the interconnectedness of these lives.
The novel is scrumptious in the way it unfolds through characters. Characters are pulling and pushing the levers of the story. Each chapter reveals new things about an unlikely pair or so of characters, gives us more context, and offers a multidimensional peek into their personality. This is also a book that benefits from re-reads. We see characters with both breadth and depth: band members Sasha Keyes and Fi Kinebuchi, Lambert Shore, whose daughter India recorded the viral moment and Mallory Shore, his wife. Everyone is entangled in these histories and intergenerational echoes. The entire narrative plays out like a strange kind of improvisation.
For the record, The First Interruption wasn’t especially notable or even outrageous (although some were outraged–Sasha Keyes in particular), but for a selection of obscure reasons it became significant.
Threaded through this is a sharp question: who owns art, or the internet fragments that pass for art? The nature of the viral moment is fleeting, ephemeral, and unpredictable. Yet its very ephemerality does not preclude it from having impact. It creates a domino effect that reverberates through people’s lives. It is a rewarding read, though not the smoothest one, because of the way it is written. At no point can you predict which character will take centre stage next, or how their perspective will reframe the story. It keeps you on edge, much like the internet itself: volatile, surprising, endlessly refracted. As I noted at the start, the novel performs the very commentary it offers. Virality is outside your control; participation is often unchosen.
TonyInterruptor himself, real name John Lincoln Braithwaite — the book’s namesake — has little active role in this otherwise hyperactive novel. He is living his normal life, going to the library per usual, which gets scrutinised a little in the immediate aftermath of the incident.
John Lincoln Braithwaite goes to the library and he borrows books. He owns a real library card (okay–he owns a real library card, digitally, on his phone). He owns several real library cards (okay, so he is a card-carrying member of several libraries digitally) because he prefers not to possess things but rather to honour them. He prefers to borrow books and then to carefully return them. He loves light and he lives light.
But he likely does not even experience the biggest impact of this moment. For many people, virality may be a temporary blip. Yet it does leave a mark on others.
In contemplating the question, “Are we all being honest here?” Barker’s characters are propelled into drastic decisions about living their most authentic lives. That, ultimately, is the greatest improvisation. TonyInterruptor is comedy and commentary in equal measure, but it is also a sharp meditation on virality versus fame, on artistic imperatives versus authenticity. Again and again, it delivers opportunities for a pause for the reader to either wince at the mirror it holds up, or simply laugh it out.
Thank you Granta Books for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
Originally Reviewed at World Review of Books
In Nicola Barker’s TonyInterruptor, a short novel, a moment at an improv jazz concert spirals into something much larger. A heckle becomes a viral meme, triggering not only an avalanche of philosophical questions but also a portal into internet virality. The book is chaotic, it throws sharp comedic punches, and this quality sustains because of its extremely eccentric characters. This whole ecosystem of weirdness is propped up by Barker’s singular style, full of sidebar thoughts, bracketed asides, and unfiltered digressions.
‘Is this honest? Are we all being honest here?’
The interruptor had a good voice, a strong voice. It was fundamentally classless but with the slightest suggestion of northern grit. It had a pleasing timbre: low, grave, sincere. And the line was delivered in such a way that it seemed at once spontaneous but considered, indignant but measured. It was heartfelt. There was … somehow or other, there was soul.
What’s especially striking is how the novel demonstrates the very things it discusses. While meditating on authenticity and non-conformity, it embodies those same principles in its structure and voice. A cacophony of arguments rises; about art, authenticity, interpersonal relationships, all of which circle back to the heckler’s refrain: Is this honest? Are we all being honest here? Out of context, the question could mean anything. In the novel, it becomes a spark that ignites everything: the viral clip, the heated backstage debate, the hashtag #TonyInterruptor.
“Insofar as value for money is relevant to Art, that audience–an attentive audience, a great audience–were determined to get it.”
Within that one scene, the book manages to stage comedy, philosophy, and commentary on how ideas mutate in public. From there, the narrative widens, revealing character after eccentric character, as only a literary novel can.
That brings me to a caveat: the writing style does not make for the smoothest reading experience. The thoughts are presented with ellipses, tangents, and constant digressions. After a while, this can feel overwhelming. It’s reasonable to read no more than 20 pages at a stretch, then pause to digest before continuing.
The premise itself is a winner, as it resists any prediction. You cannot guess anything about the characters or the direction of the story. Everyone proves eccentric in their own way. The sheer unpredictability of their actions and dispositions keeps the momentum going, and there is a sense of sleuthing afforded to the reader about the interconnectedness of these lives.
The novel is scrumptious in the way it unfolds through characters. Characters are pulling and pushing the levers of the story. Each chapter reveals new things about an unlikely pair or so of characters, gives us more context, and offers a multidimensional peek into their personality. This is also a book that benefits from re-reads. We see characters with both breadth and depth: band members Sasha Keyes and Fi Kinebuchi, Lambert Shore, whose daughter India recorded the viral moment and Mallory Shore, his wife. Everyone is entangled in these histories and intergenerational echoes. The entire narrative plays out like a strange kind of improvisation.
For the record, The First Interruption wasn’t especially notable or even outrageous (although some were outraged–Sasha Keyes in particular), but for a selection of obscure reasons it became significant.
Threaded through this is a sharp question: who owns art, or the internet fragments that pass for art? The nature of the viral moment is fleeting, ephemeral, and unpredictable. Yet its very ephemerality does not preclude it from having impact. It creates a domino effect that reverberates through people’s lives. It is a rewarding read, though not the smoothest one, because of the way it is written. At no point can you predict which character will take centre stage next, or how their perspective will reframe the story. It keeps you on edge, much like the internet itself: volatile, surprising, endlessly refracted. As I noted at the start, the novel performs the very commentary it offers. Virality is outside your control; participation is often unchosen.
TonyInterruptor himself, real name John Lincoln Braithwaite — the book’s namesake — has little active role in this otherwise hyperactive novel. He is living his normal life, going to the library per usual, which gets scrutinised a little in the immediate aftermath of the incident.
John Lincoln Braithwaite goes to the library and he borrows books. He owns a real library card (okay–he owns a real library card, digitally, on his phone). He owns several real library cards (okay, so he is a card-carrying member of several libraries digitally) because he prefers not to possess things but rather to honour them. He prefers to borrow books and then to carefully return them. He loves light and he lives light.
But he likely does not even experience the biggest impact of this moment. For many people, virality may be a temporary blip. Yet it does leave a mark on others.
In contemplating the question, “Are we all being honest here?” Barker’s characters are propelled into drastic decisions about living their most authentic lives. That, ultimately, is the greatest improvisation. TonyInterruptor is comedy and commentary in equal measure, but it is also a sharp meditation on virality versus fame, on artistic imperatives versus authenticity. Again and again, it delivers opportunities for a pause for the reader to either wince at the mirror it holds up, or simply laugh it out.
Thank you Granta Books for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
June 24, 2025
TonyInterruptor tells the story of a man who attends an improvised jazz gig, The man, as yet unnamed stands up in the middle of the gig and asks the question.
The man points to the trumpet player, Sasha Keyes, and finishes his disruption by commenting, almost pityingly 'You, especially'. The interruption takes people by surprise, this man doesn't appear to be your ordinary heckler.
This disruption is caught on video, posted on social media and goes viral. The book 'TonyInterrupter', is the fall out of the disruption - the tussle and tumble of the characters that try to each understand themselves and each other in the ensuing aftermath.
The characters are fantastic, Nicola Barker has such fun twisting their situations and rollicking in their discomfort. I won't list them all, because much of the enjoyment is the reveal of each new person and how they are connected through this event. But to Sasha Keyes who is singled out by the Interrupter, there is this delightful description from the view of his Manager:
At first I puzzled about how this would look, but by reading on, Sasha displays himself and the embodiment of his inner unpredictable Rottweiler leaps from the page.
While I thought the characters were great fun, I really enjoyed the exploration of so many oddities of our modern society. They are not deeply analysed but lightly played upon, but the question is clearly established - why do these oddities exist, and how did they become so profound? What is authenticity and originality in music... or art? Do the origins of a hashtag matter? In a world of spontaneous videos who is the owner of the content? How should one handle disgrace in the face of the media? And with everything in the world being comically odd, why do we try and hold our human forms rigidly to some societal expectations and not others?
Nicola Barker has a different way of looking at the world which is full of punch and relish. Smiling at one pertinent observation, and trying to pause to enjoy, you are careened into another. It is a roller coaster. And sadly, in my view, over too quickly. She is a unique voice!
‘Is this honest? Are we all being honest here?’
The man points to the trumpet player, Sasha Keyes, and finishes his disruption by commenting, almost pityingly 'You, especially'. The interruption takes people by surprise, this man doesn't appear to be your ordinary heckler.
This disruption is caught on video, posted on social media and goes viral. The book 'TonyInterrupter', is the fall out of the disruption - the tussle and tumble of the characters that try to each understand themselves and each other in the ensuing aftermath.
The characters are fantastic, Nicola Barker has such fun twisting their situations and rollicking in their discomfort. I won't list them all, because much of the enjoyment is the reveal of each new person and how they are connected through this event. But to Sasha Keyes who is singled out by the Interrupter, there is this delightful description from the view of his Manager:
'She feels now - and has always felt - that Sasha is an extremely unpredictable and intermittently vicious clinically obese 17-year-old Rottweiler with mesmerizingly yellow teeth and advance arthritis living inside the body of an inordinately pale and skinny 45-year-old suit model with a powerful jaw, giant hands and Supermanstyle spectacles (whose only real purpose, surely, are to be hurled off during a life-and-death crisis).'
At first I puzzled about how this would look, but by reading on, Sasha displays himself and the embodiment of his inner unpredictable Rottweiler leaps from the page.
While I thought the characters were great fun, I really enjoyed the exploration of so many oddities of our modern society. They are not deeply analysed but lightly played upon, but the question is clearly established - why do these oddities exist, and how did they become so profound? What is authenticity and originality in music... or art? Do the origins of a hashtag matter? In a world of spontaneous videos who is the owner of the content? How should one handle disgrace in the face of the media? And with everything in the world being comically odd, why do we try and hold our human forms rigidly to some societal expectations and not others?
Nicola Barker has a different way of looking at the world which is full of punch and relish. Smiling at one pertinent observation, and trying to pause to enjoy, you are careened into another. It is a roller coaster. And sadly, in my view, over too quickly. She is a unique voice!
July 29, 2025
At the beginning of Nicola Barker's 'TonyInterruptor', a character stands up and interrupts a jazz concert to confront the artist about honesty in his work. This one moment will impact a group of characters' lives for the rest of the novel. 'TonyInterruptor' is all about how we convey messages and how we interpret the world around us through art. Barker takes aim at the ridiculousness of so much of modern-day social media and how the incessant and meaningless dialogue around one viral video can change people's lives and careers. She skewers that sort of mentality and the results are a comic novel of small, but revelatory moments of characters grappling with ideas of how truth can and cannot fit into artwork.
Barker explores how seemingly small details may seem insignificant in the moment, but reveal so much about a character's personality and their connection to other people. We often spend so much time looking for meaning in subtext. Barker's novel forces us to examine how we manoeuvre through this new social landscape, especially a landscape that can be quite challenging and in some instances extremely antagonistic towards artists. How do we interpret art in a world where social media controls so much of the way we interact with the world? The moment a piece of art, or a piece of literature is put out into the world there are thousands of interpretations immediately broadcast on Twitter and Instagram. If you have the wrong interpretation, you can feel ostracised.
The character nicknamed TonyInterruptor is all about honesty. Where is the honesty in art? Where is the honesty in how we live our lives? While that might seem lofty or pretentious, Barker's novel is full of humour and empathy. By the end of the novel, you've grown to care about these characters and their relationships. Barker has such a deft way with humour and there's a fantastic chapter in which a drugged-up Mallory interacts with Sasha in a hospital. It becomes the centrepiece of the novel because it highlights how one small instance of human interaction can change how a piece of art is created and the impact it has on other people's lives. Yes, some of the discussions about art and authenticity can border on the tiresome, but that's also true to life. As a reader, I have little tolerance for 'know everything' teenage characters and India in 'TonyInterruptor' is just as annoying, but on the whole I found 'TonyInterruptor' to be a fascinating and amusing look at how this often horrific social media landscape has impacted the way we consume not only art but other human beings.
Barker explores how seemingly small details may seem insignificant in the moment, but reveal so much about a character's personality and their connection to other people. We often spend so much time looking for meaning in subtext. Barker's novel forces us to examine how we manoeuvre through this new social landscape, especially a landscape that can be quite challenging and in some instances extremely antagonistic towards artists. How do we interpret art in a world where social media controls so much of the way we interact with the world? The moment a piece of art, or a piece of literature is put out into the world there are thousands of interpretations immediately broadcast on Twitter and Instagram. If you have the wrong interpretation, you can feel ostracised.
The character nicknamed TonyInterruptor is all about honesty. Where is the honesty in art? Where is the honesty in how we live our lives? While that might seem lofty or pretentious, Barker's novel is full of humour and empathy. By the end of the novel, you've grown to care about these characters and their relationships. Barker has such a deft way with humour and there's a fantastic chapter in which a drugged-up Mallory interacts with Sasha in a hospital. It becomes the centrepiece of the novel because it highlights how one small instance of human interaction can change how a piece of art is created and the impact it has on other people's lives. Yes, some of the discussions about art and authenticity can border on the tiresome, but that's also true to life. As a reader, I have little tolerance for 'know everything' teenage characters and India in 'TonyInterruptor' is just as annoying, but on the whole I found 'TonyInterruptor' to be a fascinating and amusing look at how this often horrific social media landscape has impacted the way we consume not only art but other human beings.
August 12, 2025
If I were someone who DNFed books, I’d probably have given up on ‘TonyInterruptor’ after the first couple of pages. So many parentheses! So many asides! So many distractions!
But I’m not a DNFer, and so I persisted.
And, boy, was I rewarded.
The parentheses didn’t stop, but my thoughts about them and my reaction to them changed, and with time I began to think about the author’s intention and how maybe these interruptions (with their bursts of truth) were perhaps meant to reflect that initial interruption and burst of truth from the heckler, aka TonyInterruptor, which sets this story into motion. Of course, I could be wrong about this and overthinking it—but ‘TonyInterruptor’ is a story that will make you think, will make you examine your reaction to what is said, will make you look for meaning.
As such, this is a book best suited to readers who don’t mind their fiction on the arty side and who like authors who are Saying Something, even when that Thing Being Said is left entirely open to interpretation. While readers looking for a traditional, plot-based story will probably want to steer clear of it.
If you do decide to give it a go, it is definitely a book that benefits from being read in a single setting, which—given its shortness and its rapid pace—is entirely possible to do.
Despite my initial reservations, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and took a lot from it. It is one I will continue to think about, and will most likely return to—hopefully next time with some other readers who are willing to discuss it, as I feel there’s a lot more meaning and many more lessons for me to wring from it.
Many thanks to NetGalley, Nicola Barker and Granta Publications for the ARC.
But I’m not a DNFer, and so I persisted.
And, boy, was I rewarded.
The parentheses didn’t stop, but my thoughts about them and my reaction to them changed, and with time I began to think about the author’s intention and how maybe these interruptions (with their bursts of truth) were perhaps meant to reflect that initial interruption and burst of truth from the heckler, aka TonyInterruptor, which sets this story into motion. Of course, I could be wrong about this and overthinking it—but ‘TonyInterruptor’ is a story that will make you think, will make you examine your reaction to what is said, will make you look for meaning.
As such, this is a book best suited to readers who don’t mind their fiction on the arty side and who like authors who are Saying Something, even when that Thing Being Said is left entirely open to interpretation. While readers looking for a traditional, plot-based story will probably want to steer clear of it.
If you do decide to give it a go, it is definitely a book that benefits from being read in a single setting, which—given its shortness and its rapid pace—is entirely possible to do.
Despite my initial reservations, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and took a lot from it. It is one I will continue to think about, and will most likely return to—hopefully next time with some other readers who are willing to discuss it, as I feel there’s a lot more meaning and many more lessons for me to wring from it.
Many thanks to NetGalley, Nicola Barker and Granta Publications for the ARC.
December 17, 2025
Ah, serendipity! This was the book I needed at this time: it felt so good to laugh.
Nicola Barker's satire TonyInterruptor begins with a simple premise, announced in the first lines of the novel:
Lambert Shore, an architecture professor at Christ Church University, is at the gig with his adolescent daughter India who (of course) captures the moment on her phone and sends it out into the world. It goes viral. And thus, in the way of the 21st century world, what comes to be called The First Interruption becomes a piece of performance lore; a catalyst for earnest (pseudo) philosophical discussions about Art, Truth and the artificiality of modern life; a spur to tortuous self-reflections and analysis; an incitement to collective discord within family and group i.e. the band; and the palette for a whole range of human emotions. (From Sasha Keyes, especially. He's really angry. The 'improvisations' which people come to hear are choreographed well beforehand — entirely by him because he is a domineering, patronising control-freak. So, no, he's not honest, but that isn't the point of the novel.)
Barker brings us the multiple points of view of the participants in this drama of human folly. To see the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2025/12/18/t...
Nicola Barker's satire TonyInterruptor begins with a simple premise, announced in the first lines of the novel:
One day, he just stood up in the middle of a live music performance and said: 'Is this honest? Are we all being honest here?'
He pointed at Sasha Keyes, who had just begun what he (Sasha Keyes) felt to be a particularly devastating improvised trumpet solo, and added, almost pityingly: 'You, especially.' (p.3)
Lambert Shore, an architecture professor at Christ Church University, is at the gig with his adolescent daughter India who (of course) captures the moment on her phone and sends it out into the world. It goes viral. And thus, in the way of the 21st century world, what comes to be called The First Interruption becomes a piece of performance lore; a catalyst for earnest (pseudo) philosophical discussions about Art, Truth and the artificiality of modern life; a spur to tortuous self-reflections and analysis; an incitement to collective discord within family and group i.e. the band; and the palette for a whole range of human emotions. (From Sasha Keyes, especially. He's really angry. The 'improvisations' which people come to hear are choreographed well beforehand — entirely by him because he is a domineering, patronising control-freak. So, no, he's not honest, but that isn't the point of the novel.)
Barker brings us the multiple points of view of the participants in this drama of human folly. To see the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2025/12/18/t...
August 24, 2025
Social media, which has made everyday life performative, is obsessed with authenticity. Over 220 pages Nicola Barker picks apart this contradiction in a novel of forensic skill and calm observation. The titular TonyInterruptor is a heckler at an improved jazz gig, whose shout of ‘Is this honest? Are we being honest here’ explodes online and in the lives of the quartet of urbanites Barker bases her novel around. Jazz player Sasha’s caustic response only lands him in further trouble, and a constellation of characters: India the teenager who posts the first footage online; Fi the aloof ‘Queen of Strings’, India’s well-meaning but square father Lambert, and his force-of-nature wife Mallory, join in the navel-gazig, micro-judging and like counting that ensues.
All of them share a pathological sensitivity to inauthenticity that is the key engine of Barker’s comedy: where having a cigarette or a coffee needs analysing for how such actions appear, and can be justified. Against this minutely examined existence the second half of the novel sets a series of romantic escapades, as the dopamine rush of attraction and seduction lead to rash, spontaneous and deeply unexamined actions.
Barker is never in less than complete control, and while at times you’ll be exasperated at the contortions the characters go through to justify themselves to each other, and well themselves, this is on the whole a hoot.
Advance copy provided by netgalley in return for an honest review.
All of them share a pathological sensitivity to inauthenticity that is the key engine of Barker’s comedy: where having a cigarette or a coffee needs analysing for how such actions appear, and can be justified. Against this minutely examined existence the second half of the novel sets a series of romantic escapades, as the dopamine rush of attraction and seduction lead to rash, spontaneous and deeply unexamined actions.
Barker is never in less than complete control, and while at times you’ll be exasperated at the contortions the characters go through to justify themselves to each other, and well themselves, this is on the whole a hoot.
Advance copy provided by netgalley in return for an honest review.
September 19, 2025
So this was my first Nicola Barker.
I have had a secondhand copy od Darkmans on my shelf for a couple of years now, and yes, okay I'll read it now.
We follow characters after the inital (non)event at a jazz concert - an audience member calls out during the performance and disrupts the the experience (or does he add to it?), a teenage girl films and shares the video online, a band member sends the post viral with #TonyInterruptor.
What impact can something small like this have on a multitude of people and why is the person least impacted our TonyInterruptor?
TonyInterruptor is short but not sweet. Funny as in "Wow these people are so awkward and unaware of themselves and the actual thoughts and feelings of others even the ones closest to them" but it also rings true. We would all like to believe we are more reasonable and clear minded than that but how often is that really true?
TonyInterruptor fits well into a trend of books that ask questions about art, performance, and truth in not only our public but also personal lifes and relationships.
A list of some recent books that fit that bill (and I have read), so if you want more like this or have liked one of the below take these as a recommendation:
Audition by Katie Kitamura, Sister Europe by Nell Zink, Universality by Natasha Brown, Colored Television by Danzy Senna
I have had a secondhand copy od Darkmans on my shelf for a couple of years now, and yes, okay I'll read it now.
We follow characters after the inital (non)event at a jazz concert - an audience member calls out during the performance and disrupts the the experience (or does he add to it?), a teenage girl films and shares the video online, a band member sends the post viral with #TonyInterruptor.
What impact can something small like this have on a multitude of people and why is the person least impacted our TonyInterruptor?
TonyInterruptor is short but not sweet. Funny as in "Wow these people are so awkward and unaware of themselves and the actual thoughts and feelings of others even the ones closest to them" but it also rings true. We would all like to believe we are more reasonable and clear minded than that but how often is that really true?
TonyInterruptor fits well into a trend of books that ask questions about art, performance, and truth in not only our public but also personal lifes and relationships.
A list of some recent books that fit that bill (and I have read), so if you want more like this or have liked one of the below take these as a recommendation:
Audition by Katie Kitamura, Sister Europe by Nell Zink, Universality by Natasha Brown, Colored Television by Danzy Senna
August 20, 2025
Nicola Barker’s TonyInterruptor is as delightfully disordered as its name implies.
The story opens at an improvisational jazz performance, where trumpet player Sasha Keyes is abruptly interrupted mid-show by an audience member. The moment is caught on camera, goes viral, and the interrupter is swiftly dubbed TonyInterruptor by a disgruntled Keyes. From there, absurdity and chaos ripple outward.
The plot twists and turns in unpredictable leaps—sudden flashbacks, sharp digressions, and tangents that read like free-form jazz riffs translated into prose. The figure of TonyInterruptor, or John Lincoln Braithwaite as he is truly known, is a brilliant embodiment of chaos itself: he unsettles the flow, exposes uncomfortable truths society would rather ignore, and does so with biting wit and humour.
As a reader, I felt swept up in a whirlwind of clever dialogue and madcap scenes, where chaos becomes a kind of performance art in its own right. This was my first experience of Nicola Barker’s work, and I’d be fascinated to see how her other novels carry this same energy.
Overall this was an enjoyable read for me, and something different to what I would usually reach for. Thank you to NetGalley and Granta Books for this e-ARC gifted copy in exchange for my honest review
The story opens at an improvisational jazz performance, where trumpet player Sasha Keyes is abruptly interrupted mid-show by an audience member. The moment is caught on camera, goes viral, and the interrupter is swiftly dubbed TonyInterruptor by a disgruntled Keyes. From there, absurdity and chaos ripple outward.
The plot twists and turns in unpredictable leaps—sudden flashbacks, sharp digressions, and tangents that read like free-form jazz riffs translated into prose. The figure of TonyInterruptor, or John Lincoln Braithwaite as he is truly known, is a brilliant embodiment of chaos itself: he unsettles the flow, exposes uncomfortable truths society would rather ignore, and does so with biting wit and humour.
As a reader, I felt swept up in a whirlwind of clever dialogue and madcap scenes, where chaos becomes a kind of performance art in its own right. This was my first experience of Nicola Barker’s work, and I’d be fascinated to see how her other novels carry this same energy.
Overall this was an enjoyable read for me, and something different to what I would usually reach for. Thank you to NetGalley and Granta Books for this e-ARC gifted copy in exchange for my honest review
June 10, 2025
This is a review of TonyInterruptor by Nicola Barker. The novel opens on an improvisational jazz performance, where the eponymous Tonyinterruptor brings a halt to proceedings when asking “Is this honest?” A social media brouhaha ensues with the small cast of characters all affected in deep and lasting ways by the fallout.
Similar in tone but much smaller in scale to Caledonian Road, this is a cutting and highly amusing satire.
I had wanted to read a novel by this author for a number of years and was delighted to find her caustic and witty tone just up my street, there is little space made for extraneous content, a point I’d reached rapidly and usually with a skewering of relevant Woke constraints. I would say this is for lovers of beautifully constructed arguments, and character development(with the characters being universally pretty awful) rather than plot.
I raced through this with gleeful abandon and will look for other titles by this author.
Thanks to NetGalley and granta for advance review copy.
Similar in tone but much smaller in scale to Caledonian Road, this is a cutting and highly amusing satire.
I had wanted to read a novel by this author for a number of years and was delighted to find her caustic and witty tone just up my street, there is little space made for extraneous content, a point I’d reached rapidly and usually with a skewering of relevant Woke constraints. I would say this is for lovers of beautifully constructed arguments, and character development(with the characters being universally pretty awful) rather than plot.
I raced through this with gleeful abandon and will look for other titles by this author.
Thanks to NetGalley and granta for advance review copy.
August 30, 2025
When a man interrupts a live jazz night by questioning the honesty of the performance, the fallout from his interruption disrupts the complacency of a friend group. Despite the opening of the story positioning this interruption as a viral and much-discussed cultural moment, Barker's story ultimately feels insular, alluding to the effects of social media but rarely elaborating on this theme, an effect not helped by how its characters largely feel like satirical caricatures rather than possessing much emotional depth. I'm also of two minds about the writing style Barker employs: her use of parentheses complicates (interrupts?) the structure of her sentences in clever ways, enhancing the anxious sense of uncertainty and artificiality that dominates the plot, but I soon found the constant all-caps shouting and similarly loud, aggressive approach to depicting stream-of-consciousness to be overbearing. There's some interesting thematic work about spontaneity, social media, and our expectations of art and culture, but ultimately I struggled to connect with TONYINTERRUPTOR.
June 5, 2025
Nicola Barker is one of the truly unique voices in British fiction, and a new novel from her is always welcome. She is very playful, postmodern and often very funny. TonyInterruptor starts with a man standing up at a jazz concert and asking "Is this honest? Are we all being honest here?" This moment, which goes viral, changes the lives of everyone involved. For this to suggest there is a detailed plot here, though, would mislead. Barker is like a jazz musician, freestyling, riffing on a theme. TonyInterruptor is another triumph from Barker, though perhaps not her most immediately accessible one. I started my love for her work with The Yips from 2012, one of her three nods from the Booker Prize. Either way, do yourself a favour and read some Barker, and let her unique worldview change you - for this is what fiction should do, and she does it amongst the best.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.
August 18, 2025
Tony Interrupter by Nicola Barker
When an audience member at an improvised jazz session ( who becomes the Tony of the title), stands up and questions the honesty of the performance, the wheels of reaction and consequence start to turn. We live in a World where such episodes are unlikely to escape filming, posting on line and going viral. So is the case this time. The fallout though is not only on the lives of characters, but also causes them (and us) to reflect more deeply on philosophical questions relating to honesty and freedom. It also highlights some of the differences of opinion which occur between the generations within a household; something which may resonate equally with readers at each end of the age spectrum.
I did find it a challenge keeping up with the different characters at first and the flow of the story. I may benefit from reading a few things back.
#docs.reading.room
When an audience member at an improvised jazz session ( who becomes the Tony of the title), stands up and questions the honesty of the performance, the wheels of reaction and consequence start to turn. We live in a World where such episodes are unlikely to escape filming, posting on line and going viral. So is the case this time. The fallout though is not only on the lives of characters, but also causes them (and us) to reflect more deeply on philosophical questions relating to honesty and freedom. It also highlights some of the differences of opinion which occur between the generations within a household; something which may resonate equally with readers at each end of the age spectrum.
I did find it a challenge keeping up with the different characters at first and the flow of the story. I may benefit from reading a few things back.
#docs.reading.room
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May 27, 2025I feel I ought to apologise to Nicola Barker for this extremely middling review, but I suppose it is also much more honest when a reviewer acknowledges that books are read in a time and a place, and often the right book comes at much the wrong time...
A time of great personal stress for me + I read this following My Friends by Hisham Matar, which I found personally and profoundly impactful - a book in which every word was wrought with meaning.
Therefore I struggled to get a hold on TonyInterruptor, which I had been rather excited to read. It was all very clever (or pretentious) and mildly amusing but absolutely the wrong kind of book for me in this moment. The abyss between my mental state/previous read and this made the novel feel vapid. For that reason I'd rather eschew stars!!!
Thank you to Granta and NetGalley for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.
A time of great personal stress for me + I read this following My Friends by Hisham Matar, which I found personally and profoundly impactful - a book in which every word was wrought with meaning.
Therefore I struggled to get a hold on TonyInterruptor, which I had been rather excited to read. It was all very clever (or pretentious) and mildly amusing but absolutely the wrong kind of book for me in this moment. The abyss between my mental state/previous read and this made the novel feel vapid. For that reason I'd rather eschew stars!!!
Thank you to Granta and NetGalley for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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