This Isn’t the
Sort of Thing
That Happens
to Someone
Like You
Jon McGregor
4th Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published by Bloomsbury in 2012
This eBook published by 4th Estate in 2017
Copyright © 2012 by Jon McGregor
Linocuts © 2012 by Paul Greeno
Cover image © Shutterstock
Jon McGregor asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins
Source ISBN: 9780008218652
Ebook Edition © January 2017 ISBN: 9780008218669
Version: 2016-12-07
Praise for This Isn't The Sort Of Thing That Happens To Someone Like You
‘Jon McGregor is one of the UK’s most fascinating and versatile writers’ Gary Shteyngart, author of Super Sad True Love Story
‘Jon McGregor’s writing combines dreamy, ethereal poetry with a northern sensibility unafraid to confront devastating truths … McGregor is adept at depicting emotions with unassuming language’ Independent
‘These unnerving splinters depicting ordinary people in crisis, often against the fathomless landscape of the Fens, make for an outstanding collection from a great writer’ Metro
‘This is a book of ominous preludes and chilling aftermaths: the incantatory account of a vacationer at a war-ravaged resort in the minutes before he drowns; the Pinter-esque power play of a vicar’s wife whose husband offers shelter to a gallingly manipulative stranger. McGregor stealthily commands our active engagement, scattering crumbs of data for us to pick through, gum-shoe style’ New York Times
‘Electrifyingly original and skilful … McGregor also has a gift for lyricism and shows great skill and fearlessness in his experiments with form. I can’t remember the last time I read a collection of stories this original, this strange, or this powerfully menacing’ Sydney Morning Herald
‘[E]ach tale in this slim, elegant book does something most of us wish would happen to us in real life: It stops us in a humdrum moment and reveals how that small, unnoticed sliver of time can illuminate an entire life’ Oprah.com Book of the Week
‘Jon McGregor’s stories are strange and lovely masterpieces: painfully authentic, inquisitive rather than confrontational, he has a tremendous ability to disturb the surface of everyday things ... Underneath that which is radically quotidian, he captures our unique and unusual selves’ Sarah Hall
For Éireann Lorsung,
& Matthew Welton
Contents
Copyright
Praise for This Isn’t the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You