Centrefolding

An unnamed protagonist shifts, sprints, swerves and transmorphs through the "Centre!" (exclamation mark required), a research institute in some northern British city, in our current jittery moment. Glitches in reality abound: expect research into alien life that goes nowhere, an underground hospital, an Entrepreneur-in-Residence, and 'lingerers' slithering under glass doors (you know, like a worm).

"'Centrefolding' is my dream novelette: gossipy, pacy, and full of gorgeous swerves of language. With enviable wit and inventiveness, it diagnoses the maladies of our contemporary institutions, and reveals the corporate-washed future as the bad joke it is. It’s a book for the sick, the precarious, the loiterers, and the brilliant and glamorous in spite of it all – Kirsty Dunlop has written a future cult classic."

— Daisy Lafarge, author of 'Lovebug'

"Like a short and sweet zap to the brain, 'Centrefolding' captures the rushing, incoherent world of illusions we are currently living in. Constantly straining against the boundaries of form and selfhood, an unnamed narrator lives precariously while interrogating signs, symbols, borders and porousness in pursuit of hope and connection. Gorgeous, liquid sentences flow throughout this novella, and a surprising intimacy and craving for touch marks Dunlop as a writer committed to writing life as she encounters it — dread, terrible poetics and all."

— Anna Walsh, author of 'Stag Do/Fantasy Horn'

"'Centrefolding' had me hooked! From every unidentifiable liquid to all the kissing, Kirsty Dunlop's sharp wit surprises and delights. It is thrilling to travel through the strange dynamics Dunlop creates between the people and the Centre! and we get to loiter in the textured descriptions. In and through innovative prose we witness all the attempts to enter a thought with language, a door without a key card. I grinned and I laughed so I was shushed at the library. The prose feels fresh, delicious and all I could beg for when reaching the end was five more minutes please!!!"

— Karólína Rós Ólafsdóttir, author of 'All in Animal Time'