Practice

Named a Slate Top 10 Book of the Year
An NPR and Literary Hub Best Book of the Year

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.

Six o’clock in the morning, Sunday, at the worn-out end of January.

In a small room, cold and dim and quiet, an undergraduate student works on an essay about Shakespeare’s sonnets.

Annabel has a meticulously planned routine for her day—work, yoga, meditation, long walks— but finds it repeatedly thrown off course. Despite her efforts, she cannot stop her thoughts from slipping off their intended track into the shadows of elaborate erotic fantasies.

As the essay’s deadline looms, so too does the irrepressible presence of other people: Annabel’s boyfriend, Rich, keen to come visit her; her family and friends who demand her attention; and darker crises, obliquely glimpsed, all threatening to disturb the much-cherished quiet in her mind.

Exquisitely crafted, wryly comic, and completely original, Rosalind Brown’s Practice is a novel about the life of the mind and the life of the body, about the repercussions of a rigid routine and the deep pleasures of literature.