Rural Alabama in the 1920s is on the verge of electrification. Already, the pylons take the current from town to town, passing over the heads of poor farmers who think it is witchcraft. It is a power that is seen to be slightly beyond comprehension and slightly beyond control.
But, for Roscoe Martin, wedded to an unforgiving wife and her family’s failing farm, it is an opportunity to evolve. With powered machinery, the farm would not just turn a profit, it could reap huge productivity dividends. With some technical know-how, it is a sinch for Roscoe to hook up into the grid, siphoning off power that would be lost anyway through onward transmission. And Wilson, the wise black farm manager seems willing to go along with it…
However, the reader knows from the very opening words that it is not going to go well. The current will kill a man, and ultimately Roscoe and Wilson are called upon to pay the price. Roscoe receives injustice as his punishment far outweighs an offence that would now seem trivial; Wilson receives an injustice as he is deemed to be an accomplice to a project that would only ever have benefited Roscoe.
For the first two thirds of the novel, we interleave chapters narrated by a third person, and chapters narrated directly by Roscoe from prison. This works well up to a point, and of course there is an inevitable contrast drawn between Roscoe’s incarceration for having killed a man by electrocution, and the nascent use by the prison system of the electric chair. Unfortunately, the prison chapters soon run out of much to say and both sets of chapters end up telling the backstory. It is very well told, but it does feel as though the narrative, like Roscoe’s sentence, is unnecessarily prolonged, running to 20 chapters simply to match Roscoe’s sentence.
The final third of the novel abandons the chapter format and gives a first person narrative of Roscoe’s life on release. This offers plenty of opportunity to compare and contrast Roscoe and Wilson’s experiences and fortunes. It is pretty emotional in places. What it lacks, though, is any terribly cogent rationale for how things ended up as they had. This doesn’t seem to be a case of crime and punishment, or even behaviour and consequences. It just seems to be random outcomes from unjust situations with characters behaving strangely given all that we have come to know about them.
This is not a bad novel; even if parts of it can feel repetitive, it is not a long novel and it mixes the bleakness with humour and sunlight. There are some interesting ideas knocking around. But overall, it doesn’t quite work; it is not as profound as it clearly hopes to be.


Flip to back
Flip to front
Follow the Author
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.
OK
Work Like Any Other: Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize Paperback – 1 April 2017
by
Virginia Reeves
(Author)
Virginia Reeves
(Author)
Find all the books, read about the author, and more.
See search results for this author
|
See all formats and editions
Hide other formats and editions
Amazon Price
|
New from | Used from |
Audible Audiobook, Unabridged
"Please retry"
|
$0.00
|
Free with your Audible trial |
Paperback
"Please retry"
|
$15.99
|
$15.99 | — |
MP3 CD, Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged
"Please retry"
|
$43.85 | — |
FREE delivery on first order.
Enhance your purchase
Get 90 days FREE of Amazon Music Unlimited
with the purchase of any eligible product. Shop now
Frequently bought together
Customers who bought this item also bought
Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1
Start reading Work Like Any Other: Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize on your Kindle in under a minute.
Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.
Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.
Save on selected Bestselling Children's books.
Includes Bluey, Peter Rabbit, Spot, Peppa Pig, Roald Dahl and more. Click to explore.
Product details
- Publisher : Scribner UK (1 April 2017)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 272 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1471152235
- ISBN-13 : 978-1471152238
- Dimensions : 13 x 1.95 x 19.8 cm
-
Best Sellers Rank:
499,052 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 28,148 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction
- 202,901 in Religion & Spirituality (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
Product description
Review
"A striking debut about love and redemption, the heavy burdens of family and guilt and learning how to escape them. Powerfully told and lyrically written, there is not a false note in this book. Reeves is a major new talent." -- Philipp Meyer, author of The Son
"Work Like Any Other is an exceptional novel told in clear, direct, and starkly beautiful language. Virginia Reeves has a gift for bringing to life all the tensions that emerge wherever people, place, and progress collide. I absolutely loved it." -- Kevin Powers, author of The Yellow Birds
“How brilliantly Virginia Reeves brings to life her protagonist, Roscoe T Martin, with his hatred of farming, his love of electricity and his long struggle to make amends to himself, his family and his friends. Work Like Any Other is a novel of fierce beauty and hard-won redemption. A wonderful debut.” -- Margot Livesey, author of The Flight of Gemma Hardy
“The world of this exquisite novel – 1920s Alabama – hasn’t let go of me since I finished it. It’s gorgeous, painful, original, and so true in all its details. Reeves writes with incredibly intelligent compassion, and in Roscoe Martin has created an extraordinary man who more than earns his place among the complicated population of the literary South. Thick with dread and beauty, this is a stunning chronicle of a time, a place, and a mind.” -- Fiona McFarlane, author of The Night Guest
"Virginia Reeves' assured and absorbing debut novel is a potent mix of icy honesty and heart-wrenching tenderness; it is certainly a Work Unlike Any Other, in that its humanity and optimism are salvaged from the darkest of places, from prison cells, from mining shafts, from decomposing marriages, and from the unforgiving workings of the land." -- Jim Crace, author of Harvest and Being Dead
"A slow-burning pleasure... Wonderful... Brutal, beautiful, and, to some significant extent, redemptive." ― Daily Mail
"Beautifully written, this is an unusual and moving debut." ― Sunday Times
"Work Like Any Other is an exceptional novel told in clear, direct, and starkly beautiful language. Virginia Reeves has a gift for bringing to life all the tensions that emerge wherever people, place, and progress collide. I absolutely loved it." -- Kevin Powers, author of The Yellow Birds
“How brilliantly Virginia Reeves brings to life her protagonist, Roscoe T Martin, with his hatred of farming, his love of electricity and his long struggle to make amends to himself, his family and his friends. Work Like Any Other is a novel of fierce beauty and hard-won redemption. A wonderful debut.” -- Margot Livesey, author of The Flight of Gemma Hardy
“The world of this exquisite novel – 1920s Alabama – hasn’t let go of me since I finished it. It’s gorgeous, painful, original, and so true in all its details. Reeves writes with incredibly intelligent compassion, and in Roscoe Martin has created an extraordinary man who more than earns his place among the complicated population of the literary South. Thick with dread and beauty, this is a stunning chronicle of a time, a place, and a mind.” -- Fiona McFarlane, author of The Night Guest
"Virginia Reeves' assured and absorbing debut novel is a potent mix of icy honesty and heart-wrenching tenderness; it is certainly a Work Unlike Any Other, in that its humanity and optimism are salvaged from the darkest of places, from prison cells, from mining shafts, from decomposing marriages, and from the unforgiving workings of the land." -- Jim Crace, author of Harvest and Being Dead
"A slow-burning pleasure... Wonderful... Brutal, beautiful, and, to some significant extent, redemptive." ― Daily Mail
"Beautifully written, this is an unusual and moving debut." ― Sunday Times
About the Author
Virginia Reeves is a graduate of the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin. Her debut novel, Work Like Any Other, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, and Booklist named it to their Top 10 First Novels of 2016. Virginia lives with her husband and daughters in Helena, Montana, where she teaches writing and speech at Helena College. The Behavior of Love is her second novel.
Customers who viewed this item also viewed
Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1
Customer reviews
4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
71 global ratings
How are ratings calculated?
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyses reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Top reviews from other countries

MisterHobgoblin
4.0 out of 5 stars
Just unjust
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 August 2016Verified Purchase
9 people found this helpful
Report abuse

Denno
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very good
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 February 2021Verified Purchase
This is a very well written, simple yet profound book. The initial set up, telling the back story , was effective and gave the foundation for The themes explored in the book; Destiny, financial security, independence and most importantly self identify and the importance of work. The prison scenes were superbly told and the characters were really well drawn and this reminded me partly of the classic prison dramas such as cool hand Luke and partly the works of Steinbeck (and that is praise indeed. The final third, covers forgiveness, right and wrong and again that sense of self worth and the importance work plays in that. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this.

Neasa MacErlean
4.0 out of 5 stars
A tale of Alabama in the 1920s
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 September 2016Verified Purchase
I decided to read this because I read a very strong review of it and because of the setting in Alabama in the 1920s as electricity was coming in. It is a good book but it is not my kind of book and might not be yours. It is quite slow (but blessedly short) and just tells a rather unfortunate story at its own pace. Roscoe and his wife, Marie, could be set for a great life on the farm she inherited from her father. But will Roscoe, bored by farming but fascinated by electricity, be able to use his talents - in understanding the science of the new power source - to help them make more than a subsistence living? The book very quickly gives you the answer to that. And you read about their blighted lives - lives which, but for a chance accident, could have been so happy. I admire Virginia Reeves's talent and maybe she will become a great writer - but this did drag a bit for me.
2 people found this helpful
Report abuse

Ms. K. Thomas
3.0 out of 5 stars
I really enjoyed the first half of this book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 August 2016Verified Purchase
I really enjoyed the first half of this book, especially the locations and the subject. However I began to find that this book dragged in the second half, there was still drama and action but by this point I had realised that I didn't care much for the main characters - no one was rounded enough to feel for them or be that bothered by what was happening. I felt that the plot was interesting but the characters needed more work so that I cared more about what was happening.
2 people found this helpful
Report abuse

hr7
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb and beautiful book - very hard to put down
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 March 2017Verified Purchase
Gem of a book. I had high expectations and was not disappointed.
The story line, characters and irony of the novel is all superb. Immediately transported into a different and tough world, in which the promise of the future can damage the present. No need to say more, give this book a chance.
The story line, characters and irony of the novel is all superb. Immediately transported into a different and tough world, in which the promise of the future can damage the present. No need to say more, give this book a chance.
One person found this helpful
Report abuse