Tender and true. It explores with brilliance and deep empathy how our lives - and our secrets - are always intertwined with those who went before us - DOUGLAS STUART
The poet's deft first novel conveys the personal and political pain felt by three generations in his home town . . . This is not a novel specifically about the strike and its outcome, although its embittered legacy is skilfully threaded through its pages . . . the narrative is impressively ambitious . . . a novel of huge compassion - Guardian
A deeply felt and rich enactment of love, loneliness and personal triumph that leaves an indelible mark on modern Queer life. With the poet's precision and capacious resistance to resolution, wherein doubt is transformed into force, McMillan's first foray into fiction is a magical one - OCEAN VUONG
McMillan proves himself a gifted storyteller - JACKIE KAY, The Times
We already knew that Andrew McMillan could turn a phrase. With his debut novel, he also shows us a rare gift for storytelling. Pity digs deep into the heart and history of South Yorkshire and brings out the black gold of love, longing and loss. A triumph - JON McGREGOR
Pity pays a great poet's tough but tender attention to the unspoken layers and historic fissures which lie beneath the wounded town of the self. This beautiful book about the marks that are left on people and places in turn leaves a deep empathic mark on the reader - MAX PORTER
A magnificent kaleidoscope of a novel: sad, wise, enlightening and empathetic - Independent
An astonishingly good book . . . I know already Pity will be one of my books for 2024. It's that good - VAL McDERMID
As befits the work of an award-winning poet, not a word is wasted in Pity, Andrew McMillan's slim, spare, sparkling story about three generations of men in a Barnsley mining family . . . uplifting and mournful, full of hope and regret - Financial Times
Pity is as tough, glittering and multilayered as the coal upon which it rests. With lyrical prose and deep tenderness, Andrew McMillan beautifully explores the complex hauntings of love and grief across generations - LIZ BERRY
Nuanced and quietly brilliant - ROGER ROBINSON
Beautiful, sparing and impassioned . . . [a] tender exploration of the ties that bind generations - Literary Review
Memorable . . . Sensitive, skilful and original, this is a debut to applaud - Daily Mail
A resounding success . . . there's simply no questioning McMillan's inherent talent - Irish Times
Full of intrigue . . . McMillan displays his poet's knack for linguistic playfulness - New Statesman

McMillan's writing is at its most powerful . . . he fearlessly explores masculinity and desire . . . bringing to the novel the clarity and economy of a poet who looks unflinchingly at life and longing, sex and angst, the sparseness and vividness of his prose clothes the bare political bones of this raging lament. Nor is he sentimental. There is honesty, and occasionally humour in his depiction of the town and its inhabitants, his loose ends and unresolved
problems a mirror of life. A slim but potent tale

- Herald
Truly stunning. A novel that deals with the ways history intervenes in our lives and how we can use our lives to intervene in history. South Yorkshire is a crucible - HELEN MORT
From the first page you are about to read something special . . . McMillan has written a novel which is artful, personal and, at times, simply beautiful - The Skinny
Moving and resilient, Pity explores queer life in a northern English town in a way that is immediately recognisable, full of wounds, history and possibility. Written with the scope and precision that characterises all of McMillan's work, this is a lightning bolt of a book - SE�N HEWITT
In supple, honest prose, Pity questions how we can bear the weight of what came before us. Through an acute exploration of social class, masculinity, sexuality and resistance, McMillan deftly portrays a town grappling with loss amid its post-industrial legacy, while offering a hopeful vision of what the future could look like, if we were given the power to redefine our histories and tell our stories on our own terms - JESSICA ANDREWS
Andrew McMillan's writing is phenomenal, fresh and evocative, compelling and compassionate. Pity is a beautiful and stirring book, vivid and timeless - SALENA GODDEN
Pity is an astounding novel: it is intricately crafted and highly ambitious. Taut, formally inventive and deeply rich in its language, it is driven by characters that will haunt the reader long after the final page has been turned - OKECHUKWU NZELU
A magnificent debut - Sainsbury's Magazine
Written with the kind of concise and impactful writing only a poet of Andrew's level can wield, Pity is an evocative, brilliant book about what we leave behind and what we carry forward. Its short length belies its endless depths and delights; this is a debut in name only - KASIM ALI
Moving [and] hopeful, reminding us to look beyond the stereotypes and assumptions we all hold about people different from us - i

These voices create a deceptively simple portrait of a time and place, love in all its forms, and the ongoing trials of life - MELANIE FLEISHMAN, The Center for Fiction

Andrew McMillan was born in Barnsley in 1988. His debut collection of poetry, physical, won the Guardian First Book Award, and was awarded a Somerset Maugham Award, an Eric Gregory Award, the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. His second collection, playtime, won the inaugural Polari Prize. His third collection, pandemonium, was published in 2021. He co-edited the acclaimed anthology 100 Queer Poems in 2022. He is Professor of Contemporary Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

@AMcMillanPoet | andrewmcmillanpoet.co.uk