Exercises in Control
Annabel Banks

LONGLISTED FOR THE EDGE HILL PRIZE

‘We do have a complaints procedure. You will find paper and a pen (chained) to the shelf by the bin. Write your concerns and then place them in the bin. PLEASE NOTE: We do not allow items to be placed in the bin. Please do not write on the paper.’

A lonely woman invites danger between tedious dates; a station guard plays a bloody game of heads-or-tails; an office cleaner sneaks into a forbidden room hiding grim secrets.

Compelling and provocative, Annabel Banks’s debut short fiction collection draws deeply upon the human need to be in control — no matter how devastating the cost.

Praise for Exercises in Control

‘Smart and smarting, Banks's incisive stories reveal the sharp tensions and chaotic impassivities of modern life. A triumph.’
– Eley Williams, author of Attrib.

‘This is a weird, dark, funny and surprising debut collection. The latent possibility of violence flickers beneath the surface of each of these stories. Banks has a rare talent for unsettling, uncanny and disruptive story-telling.’
– Naomi Booth, author of Sealed

‘Occasionally absurd, often disturbing, so much of these stories’ essence lies in what is left unsaid. Elusive, quietly accumulating moments of unease are expertly woven into everyday situations using exquisite imagery and sparse prose. Banks’s voice is versatile yet distinctive, with sparkling touches of dark humour set against an ever-present lingering sinister shadow.’
– Lucie McKnight Hardy, author of Water Shall Refuse Them

'With these stories, there’s always the unsettling feeling that something else is happening – perhaps something very bad – just off stage, between the lines, in the next room. A strange, elliptical, quietly violent collection.'
– Jenn Ashworth, author of Fell

'Raw and vivid, Exercises in Control finds and uncovers the dark poetry of an uncomfortable everyday. Its sharp edges and hidden corners show us a world in which we no longer know who is the wolf and who is the prey. A beautifully dark book and a remarkable voice for our troubled times.'
– Marian Womack, author of Lost Objects

'A debut collection about the human obsession with control. No matter how normal the opening scenario, each of these stories ends in the strangest place.'
– New Scientist

‘Compelling, weird and funny slices of fiction served by a daring new writer.’
– i-D magazine

'Consistently dark, surprising and playful... a cohesive and compulsively readable collection.'
– Mslexia

‘Succeeds in juxtaposing the ordinary with the extraordinary, the mundane with the shocking and at times, absurd… Banks’ stories scratch beneath the surface of the ordinary to reveal the dark messiness that we both turn away from and are familiar with.’
– The Short Story

‘Scratches the surface of the everyday and ordinary, to reveal dark and unsettling creatures crawling beneath.’
– The Skinny

‘Inventive, unorthodox, elliptical. Simply brilliant writing – prose that kicks…’
– Bookmunch

‘A rich and relevant collection.’
– Slow Culture

‘Annabel Banks has a very sharp and incisive writing style. Extremely readable and very propulsive.’
– Bookish Chat

'Control in all its weird, kinky, delusional and deadly forms is on display here in prose both uncontrollably hilarious and sharp… The result is a multi-layered, polyvalent collection of stories that build on and speak to each other from afar. '
– Lucy Writer’s Platform

‘These stories are glorious and mindblowing in the ways they examine different forms of control. They are punchy, violent, viscerally shocking, bizarre and often darkly humourous - drawing you along weird and wonderful paths that will leave your head spinning.’
– Brown Flopsy's Book Burrow

About the Author

Annabel Banks is an award-winning writer of poetry and prose. Her work can be found in such places as The Manchester Review, Litro, The Stockholm Review, Under the Radar and 3:AM, and was included in Eyewear's Best New British & Irish Poets 2016. Her writing has received multiple nominations for the Pushcart Prize, with further nominations for the Queen's Ferry Press Best Short Fictions, Blazevox's Bettering American Poetry, Best News Poets [US] and the Derringer Awards and was longlisted for the Royal Academy/Pindrop Short Story Award. In 2019, her debut poetry collection, DTR (Broken Sleep) was nominated for the Forward Prize in two categories. She lives in London.

Paperback ISBN: 9781910312476

Ebook ISBN: 9781910312483

Publication date: 20 February 2020

Formats: Paperback / eBook