Practice: A Novel

An astonishing first novel about a day in the life of a young student who experiences her thoughts, fantasies, and wishes as she writes about—or tries to write about—Shakespeare’s sonnets.

Rosalind Brown's Practice shows us just one day. Annabel, sitting in her small student room, attempts to write an essay about Shakespeare. She follows a meticulous, solitary routine but finds it repeatedly thrown off course as the day progresses: by family and friends who demand her attention and time, by thoughts of her much older boyfriend and his impending visit, by wild sexual fantasies and stories of her own invented characters—and by darker crises, obliquely glimpsed but capable of derailing Annabel's carefully laid plans.

About the Author

Rosalind Brown was born in 1987, grew up in Cambridge, England, and now lives in Norwich. Her work has been published in The Paris Review, Best British Short Stories 2017, Lighthouse, Ambit, MAI: Feminism and Visual Culture, and Propel Magazine.