TonyInterruptor

TonyInterruptor tears along with effortless bravado, a virtuoso display from an author at the top of her game. About halfway through, we discover a new word: ‘Sprezzatura … a special Italian word to describe the act of creating something superlative but with no apparent effort’. Of course, anyone familiar with Nicola Barker’s backlist will know that a book barely over 200 pages will actually have taken her enormous effort. Her best books usually sprawl and meander and tangentialise, but TonyInterruptor is focused and tight.

A free jazz concert is interrupted by a performance-art heckler. It’s an intervention inadvertently captured on an audience member’s phone, as is the ensuing inter-band-member discussion and argument. Said inadvertent film goes viral. What follows is a simple story of improv jazz, architectural hair, calculated heckles, intellectual property and social-media shame. It’s a love story (possibly two love stories) and coming-of-age story. It asks the question of art and soul and social media journalism, ‘Is this honest?’ and correctly, gloriously, heartbreakingly and heartwarmingly answers, ‘Who cares?’.

And if this sounds like fragmented, hard-to-follow, hard-to-swallow, over-worked confection … well … sprezzatura!