Lily O’Connor’s neurology is a wild, untamed beast that knocks her on her face time and again. Afflicted with epilepsy, Lily knows the condition is more than the general public believes it be, and she determined to live as normal a life with the condition as possible. Saddled with a rough (and I mean rough) family (her mother is entirely to blame in causing the injury that led to her disorder, in an act too ghastly to mention,) Lily has learned to hide the hurt away, armed with a misanthropic wit. But the death of her beastly mother, grouped with the arrival of her gambler brother and the mystery of another sibling’s disappearance, shakes up Lily’s life in ways she never could have imagined and sends her on a quest for reconciliation on the dirty, chaotic streets of London.

So, apparently this is a movie now. It’s hard to picture how a film adaptation would work, to be honest. Electricity is a otherworldly experience, an journey through the senses shedding light on a condition no one would wish on themselves or their loved ones. How will a movie give us such an unyielding look into this woman’s mind? How will a movie explain how the seizures feel? But the miracle of this novel is that Lily O’Connor is so much more than her disability.

She’s tough, complicated, seriously flawed but fundamentally decent. The strength of Lily’s character ensures that Electricity will not a textbook slog through issues of disability and dignity. Also, I don’t think I’ve ever read so much onomatopoeia in one book. The book has an interesting feminine perspective on sexuality, as well as a heartbreaking take on sexual abuse (what if I didn’t fight back! What if I liked it?)

Lily believed she was in love with her mother’s boyfriend when she was about nine years old, and appreciated the attention in a time when she was all too often ignored and overlooked. But does that make it any better? Of course not. Sexual misconduct with a preteen is abuse whether or not the child thinks they enjoy it or not. In a way, Lily has to move past her own feelings and perceptions about the event just as much as she has to move past the abuse itself.

Lily is often a hard character to like. But you can’t hate her. You just can’t. She’s too vulnerable and damaged and real for that. However, the circumstances of her upbringing seemed a little too dire at times. That coupled with her truly horrific experience with men (only her wig-donning mentor, Al, emerges unscathed) makes Electricity a sometimes disturbing read. Lily is an often sexually ambiguous character; she reports to enjoy sex with men (although she can’t climax,) while her less-than-sisterly affections for her lesbian buddy Mel makes the reader wonder what side of the fence she’s really on.

The only parts of the book I felt were lacking were the sex scenes between Lily and her boyfriend, Dave. Here we are subjected to analogies such as “He licked my breasts like lollipops” that fall short on insight into a woman’s experience of sex. They were a little corny, to be frank. They didn’t quite fit in the otherwise smooth, flawless jigsaw puzzle that was this novel. Mostly, what stands out in Electricity was the close inside view of a misunderstood condition and Lily’s unique, dialect- and profanity-salted voice. Lyrical yet not tweedy, Electricity is a engrossing read. ( )

Fast hätte ich das Buch nicht gelesen, weil es mich anfangs so irritierte. Das wäre aber schade gewesen, denn insgesamt fand ich es recht gut. Ich habe es in einem Rutsch durchgelesen.
Lily ist 30 Jahre alt, lebt alleine, arbeitet in einem Spielkasino an der Kasse. Und sie hat Epilepsie. Nach einer harten Kindheit hat sie zu ihrer Familie keinen Kontakt. Doch als ihre Mutter stirbt, taucht ihr Bruder Barry auf. Überraschenderweise gibt es ein Erbe und Lily macht sich auf, um den dritten Bruder Mikey in London zu suchen. In London ist sie überfordert von den Eindrücken und allem, was auf sie einstürmt. Aber sie findet auch eine Freundin.
Das Buch ist wirklich interessant, weil es der Autor durch seine Sprache und nichtsprachliche Elemente des Buches schafft, Lilys Welt, ihre Denkweise und ihre Krankheit auszudrücken. Das ist mitunter heftig, brutal, vulgär und verstörend, aber oft auch liebevoll, zärtlich und witzig. Irgendwie lernt man Lily durch das Buch richtig kennen, wie eine reale Person. Ich fands gut und hätte gern noch gewusst, wie es weitergeht. ( )

Lily has epilepsy, and her condition certainly co-stars with her in this brave novel of families lost and found.

Lily was abused as a child and grew up in care apart from her brothers. When her Mam dies, she refinds brother Barry, but he soon departs for pastures new on the poker circuit leaving her alone again, so she sets out for London in search of her other long lost brother Mikey. Along the way she makes a great friend in Mel, and end up falling for electrician Dave - neither are quite who they seem at first.

It's a brave chap who writes a female first person narrative, and even braver for giving us the full picture of what it's like to suffer a fit - and everyone except Lily panics at first. She just checks for sharp corners around her before it takes full control of her.
A fantastic and totally gripping first novel. ( )

It's been a while since I found a book totally unputdownable, but Ray Robinson's Electricity has kept me spell bound for the last couple of days, and I'm so sad I've finished it.

I loved its feisty protagonist, Lily, who suffers from epilepsy (so bad she's sometimes throwing several fits a day and constantly in danger from injury) but never allows the disability to define her.

Physically abused as a child by her mother (the epilepsy began after she was thrown down stairs) and sexually abused by her mother's lover, Lily is shunted into a care home as an adolescent, while her brothers are sent to Borstal after a fracas with the police. She takes a job in an amusement arcade in a small seaside town and doesn't see her family again until the police come to inform her that her mother is seriously ill in hospital.

Her mother's death brings Lily's brother, Barry, a big-time gambler player back into her life, but her other brother Mikey, her great childhood protector is still missing, and she knows that she must find him. With the money she inherits from the sale of her mother's house she makes the journey to London to try to track him down. It's a particularly brave venture considering the fact that she could collapse and have a fit at any moment.

I felt myself really cheering Lily on - not just in her search for her brother but in negotiating the new relationships in her life, with Mel the city high-flier who rescues her after a fit leaves her collapsed in the middle of a busy road, and Dave, a hunky electrician who turns out not to be all he seems.

One of the remarkable achievements of the book is that we're right inside Lily's head experiencing the often terrifying disorientating effects of the disorder with her. I learned a great deal. And it always pleasantly surprises when a bloke gets a woman's voice so well down to the page.

Would I recommend it? Yes, very strongly. It reminded me in some ways of Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time.

The novel is shortlisted for this year's James Tait Black Award. ( )