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Rebecca Watson

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little scratch: A Novel Hardcover – August 11, 2020

by Rebecca Watson (Author)

4.3 122 ratings

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"Extraordinary"--THE NEW YORKER

In the formally innovative tradition of Grief Is the Thing with Feathers and Ducks, Newburyport comes a dazzlingly original, shot-in-the-arm of a debut that reveals a young woman's every thought over the course of one deceptively ordinary day.

She wakes up, goes to work. Watches the clock and checks her phone. But underneath this monotony there's something else going on: something under her skin.

Relayed in interweaving columns that chart the feedback loop of memory, the senses, and modern distractions with wit and precision, our narrator becomes increasingly anxious as the day moves on: Is she overusing the heart emoji? Isn't drinking eight glasses of water a day supposed to fix everything? Why is the etiquette of the women's bathroom so fraught? How does she define rape? And why can't she stop scratching?

Fiercely moving and slyly profound, little scratch is a defiantly playful look at how our minds function in--and survive--the darkest moments.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Reading little scratch has broken my heart and opened my mind. It is a daring display of experience that persists and persists and never loses its light." —Jenny Slate, New York Times bestselling author of Little Weirds

"Technology is affecting the way we think, and Rebecca Watson’s little scratch is a novel that captures this. . . Watson lets the words flow, jumbled and urgent as our thoughts are, like Kerouac and his scrolls . . .This isn’t a long book; that’s part of how the author is able to pull it off. . .But it charms. The book’s unconventional strategy fell away as I read; I cared about the narrator as one does a well-drawn character. She scratches at her skin throughout the book, and eventually I felt it."—The New Republic

"Watson depicts her protagonist’s consciousness by way of striking formal structures, using typographical tricks to illustrate the cacophonous complexity of inner life. . . While this could be distracting, or even indulgent, in lesser hands, Watson’s experiments serve to both deepen our immersion and reify the buried pain at the novel’s center. . . little scratch absorbs the more fragmented forms of attention and makes of them something rich, assured and sad."—New York Times Book Review

"[The protagonist is] funny and relatable . . . [T]he writing is economical. It’s a quick read. It takes a regular day and renders it irregularly, interestingly. It presents grief, violence, self-harm and self-doubt in an unusual fashion, driving home just how disorienting and destabilizing these forces can be. It is of the #MeToo era, tackling both catcallers and unrepentant predators, but exists on a plane all its own."—Washington Post

"[little scratch] is a powerful debut from Financial Times journalist Watson, making her one of the year's best new writers to watch."—Bustle

“I was immediately enveloped in the staccato of little scratch, which spun between wry, funny and heartbreaking. It captures beautifully a rhythm not just of trauma, but also of the small, defiant, everyday happinesses that push through and against it.” —Sophie Mackintosh, author of The Water Cureand Blue Ticket

"Rebecca Watson's little scratch is an immersive experience, an exhilarating plunge into the mundanity and the horror and the mundane horror of a day in a life that is not quite right. It's experimental in the best sense of the word: Watson bends form to accommodate a narrator who wants desperately to communicate but cannot quite bring herself to speak."—Miranda Popkey, author of Topics of Conversation

"An inventive, immersive debut... Watson’s clever convention and set pieces are not simply flourishes but integral to the plot and themes... A haunting, virtuosic performance."—Publishers Weekly, *Starred Review*

"One of the most captivating books of the year...A revolutionary #MeToo tale focusing less on the act of trauma than the impossible task of healing, little scratch is a challenging work of experimental fiction."—Shelf Awareness

"Formally daring and unique, the novel’s structure mirrors the ways the woman’s mind jumps from mundane moments to the life-changing ones."—The Millions

"The unnamed narrator of this debut novel is an Everywoman...The physical form of the narrative reproduces the experience of the woman's scattered thoughts... which overlap, interrupt each other, merge, and battle in the saturated “now” of the book’s overwhelming immediacy. The result is an unusual reading experience which relates both the mundane and the revelatory...A daring book whose innovations are balanced by the sad familiarity of its pain."—Kirkus Review

"Witty, defiant, tender… what a book!"—Olivia Sudjic, author of Sympathy and Exposure

"Reads like the cinders settling in the air after an explosion... daring and completely readable."—Colin Barrett, author of Young Skins

"Rebecca Watson's little scratch voraciously captures our life... Watson uses language with a sniper's precision to target and capture the million little re-calibrations of the self that a young woman has to undertake in order to go from one day to the next. . . It is a story that is urgent. It is a story that needs to be told."—Meena Kandasamy, author of When I Hit You

"Confident and vital. . . little scratch is an absolute gift."—Naoise Dolan, author of Exciting Times

About the Author

Rebecca Watson writes for publications including the Financial Times, The Times Literary Supplement, and Granta. In 2018 she was short-listed for the White Review Short Story Prize. This is her debut novel.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

look at me now lost in linearity, where is the freedom in my head, to not have to only move side to side, stuck in straight lines every morning once I’ve arrived in this office, breaking myself in every morning, having to loosen the numbness punch by punch

but yes I can feel my head loosening, freeing, it’s always this way, numbness ebbs, visits, interrupts, but always pushed down eventually taking my head away, but always giving it back (or do I wrench it back? I am not sure but I am tired certainly, so I might have been wrenching), takes a while to unstick, colleague passing, who always makes tea for the assistant in the corner, who, I wonder, perhaps knows everything, it seems so, in her soft look, her incessant tea and the no questions, no questions, apart from tea, and sometimes

noting things that she likes, today my shoes her, nice shoes!
patent t-bars that I rather like myself me, aw, thank you!
(obviously) they’re from Tesco
but don’t tell anyone

her, your secret’s safe with me

and she’s away, me still not even sure what she does, her name beginning with R, likely Rachel although that doesn’t sound right,

someone called her over once after she left my desk (she was probably pausing to offer me tea or compliment my dress), and I remember thinking I MUST REMEMBER HER NAME but all that’s left now is the R

I would conclude that she’s imagined, except I imagine that if I were to imagine people they’d make less small talk, do something more radical, incite Gregorian chant, my subconscious trying to find an escape route, a way to be sent out of this place for good (and a chant filling the newsroom might do the trick), I don’t think I’d imagine someone nice, I’d know I was imagining it straight away,

nah I don’t buy it,

I’d tell my imagined colleague,

just not a believable character I’m afraid, the critics would slate you
ignoring, admittedly, the fact that she does exist, her and the flecked auburn falling across her back, the white of her eyes even whiter than her skin

(her paleness not a weakness, not prone to illness, just pale),

I’m still in my argument (with myself inside my head) ignoring the fact that all of that exists, all of her exists, those eyes that hair those soft looks that seem to say I know I know I know, all exist and thus she is believable, is real even, but yes, after all, often those that are real are the ones that, when imagined up, don’t quite fit, don’t quite work

and she is gone now after all

shoes still on my feet

her gone

wondering the difference between a woman saying nice shoes

a woman I do not know very well at all no and a man

I do not know very well at all saying nice shoes
I guess
if a man says a certain sort of man that is, I can’t say for sure,
can’t tell you how to know, just that you’ll know when you know, that it’s that sort of man, yes,

when that sort of man says nice shoes

he is not saying nice shoes
he is saying I am itemising you

he is saying, take yourself out of that head and put your eyes in my sockets

because hello I am itemising you

like yesterday

that man rapping the side of his stand

selling caramel nuts me sitting nearby propped on the side by the river ten minutes before I needed to go back to my desk reading and then him, suddenly, rapping the side, rap rap rap, me head down ignoring, him rapping the side, me looking up and beaming at me, nothing more, just wanting to grin, to show his presence when I was finally for a moment not present anywhere

what are those moments called? some would call them niceties I guess but I just hear the knock against the side of his stand with his fist (clenched), needing me to notice, to be interrupted, to give the attention I was so set on giving elsewhere

I know if I told this anecdote I’d stress the nuance, if I were to tell my him about it, as I often end up doing, telling that is (although not other things but this digression is not something I am going into), I’d embellish, I’d say !HE LOOKED ME UP AND DOWN!, or !he said PHWOAR LIKE A BIT OF THAT!, adding any detail to support my side so there is no chance he’d doubt, no chance he’d say, Well what’s wrong with a man wanting to smile at you on a sunny day? the answer is obviously a lot A LOT IS WRONG WITH THAT but I don’t have the words I can’t unpick

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Doubleday (August 11, 2020)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0385545762
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0385545761
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 4.8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.18 x 1.01 x 8.78 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,551,936 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #8,730 in Women's Friendship Fiction
- #13,307 in Coming of Age Fiction (Books)
- #66,027 in Literary Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.3 122 ratings

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Rebecca Watson

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Rebecca Watson is the author of 'little scratch', which was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize. The novel was adapted into an acclaimed play with sell-out runs at Hampstead Theatre (2021) and New Diorama (2023). She was chosen as one of the Observer's 10 best debut novelists of 2021 and as a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice.

Watson’s non-fiction has been published widely, including in the Observer, the TLS, the Guardian and British Vogue. She presented a one-off documentary for Radio 4 in 2022 where her short stories have also aired. She lives in London and works part-time as an editor at FT Weekend. Her second novel, 'I Will Crash', is published this year.

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4.3 out of 5

122 global ratings

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Janice

A relatable mental health must read!

Reviewed in the United States on August 11, 2020

Loved this book! Quite a quick read as it was written in an internal narrative/poem-y way (which I didn’t realize when I picked it up!). A bit tough to read given the formatting but it’s simultaneously what makes the book so lovely to read. Definitely the type of book where I felt “ok so I’m going to read this again once I finish,” just because although tiny and mighty, there’s a lot packed into this. Strikingly real, relatable, heartwarming and heart breaking. I definitely recommend this book.

5 people found this helpful

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Camille

How did this even get published?

Reviewed in the United States on August 30, 2020

Ebook, ARC from NetGalley.
DNF at 15%.

I expected this book to have a coherent story... with sentences. And grammar. And punctuation. I was mistaken.

If you like stream-of-consciousness poetry that takes a long time to get anywhere, you might like this book. I don't.

After reading the word "walking" no fewer than 50 times on a single page, I was uncertain I w⁹ould make it much longer. After I got to a paragraph (rather, a block of text) that contained the single word "filing" 45 times -- uninterrupted -- I gave up.

This is not for me. There's no story here. There's only word vomit.

14 people found this helpful

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Marian Morrill

A most unique debut novel

Reviewed in the United States on August 21, 2020

Take one day, write down all of your random thoughts and you have the premise for little scratch, Rebecca Watson's unique debut novel.

The storyline centers on one day in the life of the unnamed protagonist, a young English woman. She wakes up, goes to work, and eventually meets up with her boyfriend later that evening. During the course of this novel, you're often reading random words (not sentences), so I had a hard time making sense of what was happening in the storyline. Toward the end of the book, Watson uses more sentences so that it becomes clearer (at least to me), what was transpiring.

While this is not a book for everyone, and I had a difficult time following along, it was toward the end of the book where Watson's unique brand of writing started to make sense to me in the way she conveys the heartbreaking secret that this young English woman must deal with.

Thank you to #NetGalley and Random House for providing me with a digital copy of this book prior to publication in exchange for my review. #littlescratch

3 people found this helpful

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Kristine Fisher

little scratch

Reviewed in the United States on January 14, 2021

little scratch by Rebecca Watson is a free NetGalley ebook that I read in early September.

Britspeak first-person stream of consciousness reactionary prose where the passage of time is noted journal-style or in a long-form text message.

One person found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Amazon Customer

excellent book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 22, 2024

Verified Purchase

Bought as a present - the recipient loved it

Amazon Customer

Fantastic book!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 25, 2021

Verified Purchase

Rebecca Watson writes in a way that easily grips the reader and walks them expertly through the mind and reality of a young woman dealing with trauma. Very experimental in style, but brilliantly executed. Highly recommend this book! 5/5 for sure.

6 people found this helpful

Lucy Reynolds

Not compatible with Kindle Paperwhite!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 13, 2022

Verified Purchase

Unfortunately the Kindle version is not compatible with Kindle Paperwhite - a warning would be helpful Amazon!
So, ended up reading on my phone which isn't the best reading experience. Enjoyed the different structure and overall story but have enjoyed it even more reading a physical book version.

2 people found this helpful

AML LAUGHER

Great book. Efficiently delivered.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 13, 2022

Verified Purchase

Used this book to read???!!!