In Mrs. S, the debut novel by the Glasgow author K. Patrick, bodies exist as a site of ongoing construction. Perhaps this is because our protagonist does not know how she feels about the particular body that she inhabits. And the questions that crop up because of that unknowing make for an entirely captivating read ... In due course the novel offers a steamy love story, and Patrick proves to be a deft hand at the erotic ... I could wax on about the sensuality of Patrick’s narrative, how sometimes loneliness means gazing deeply into the well of your own self, wondering at the stranger who’s reflected back. But I’d rather leave it with the unanswered question. Change comes for us all, and that’s a beautiful, awesome thing. Save the knowledge for later.

Mrs S promises classic hothouse drama then segues into an experiment with form that frequently converts expectation to bemusement ... There are set pieces – violence at a school dance, a Lorca play, gardening, more gardening – that form a background to the progression of the relationship, but the 300-odd pages of this novel are a slow burn. With its suppressed yearning, erotic tension and search for the 'self,' the book is essentially a lengthy prose poem that will delight some readers and alienate others ... Mrs S is inventive and original in many ways, and very much of its time in others: reflective, solipsistic, essentially plotless. But Patrick at their best is a powerful prose writer, with dense, intense yet pared-back descriptions ... There are valid comparisons with Garth Greenwell to be made, and a Woolfian stream of consciousness is definitely at play. But the stylistic choices present some serious problems of pace ... Atmospheric and daring and at times beautifully written, Mrs S would be more powerful as a novella in which the avoidance of conventional fictional devices in a shorter form would elevate its originality above its own challenges.

In a literary culture where every other first novel seems to be in the genre of what one writer for The New Yorker called 'gals being sad on their phones', this is a book with individuality to burn. There’s nothing else like it out there ... It’s hard to overstate how intense the narrative is, helped along by being set in a heatwave, which adds a sweaty sultriness to everything ... But Mrs S is evidence too that every authorial decision has a debit and a credit side. The fervour of the matron’s passion for Mrs S means there is little room for humour in her story. The narrator’s breathless style can tangle the reader up in who said what and it flattens all the secondary characters with the exception of the housemistress. Nonetheless, it remains exciting to hear such an individual new voice exploring power and desire, giving us an artful insight in other lives and reminding us that all things move toward their end.

Striking ... Lust yields subtle revelations about sexual power and selfhood ... It takes artfulness as well as conviction to pull off something so bold, and it marks the author out as a distinctive new talent. Meanwhile, there’s that heat: steamy, sticky, torrid.

[a] subtle, scintillating novel ... This is a story in which clichés -- of genre, of identity -- disintegrate under pressure ... From the first page Patrick’s prose has a lapidary quality. Phrases fall like beats ... Indeed, the intimacy and suppleness of Patrick’s writing mark it out from the stripped-clean default of much contemporary fiction ... The sex scenes are masterly in their combination of detail and omission ... Lacking firm anchorage in time or place, the story turns on the tension (or inextricable dynamic) between personae and inner selves.

Patrick is able to use language to evoke smell – to evoke all the senses – with a luxurious affluence. In less adroit hands, Mrs S might feel like sensory overload. Instead, it’s almost alchemical: sounds can be touched, sight is transformed into taste ... Narrated in the first person, and without any quotation marks to indicate speech – whether that of the narrator or her interlocutors – consciousness runs into action, into conversation, into description, all of it rich, molten and fluid. The feeling of torpor lingers, a thick, slick haze of sex, heat and queer female desire. The sex scenes are beautifully written, but even without them the sensuality would remain ... Patrick clearly loves language, but more importantly, also knows exactly what to do with it.

K Patrick recently made both Granta’s once-a-decade list of best young British novelists and The Guardian’s list of this year’s best new novelists, and the praise is warranted. Giving precedence to the senses above all else, Patrick’s language and style are fluid; no quotations or dialogue tags are used, and there are often no breaks between dialogue and interior monologue, to the point that you sometimes can’t tell who is speaking or whether something is only thought, not said aloud ... Patrick’s poetic, at times elliptical prose style is perfect for building erotic tension throughout the first half of the novel; and the second half, when the narrator and Mrs. S are faced with the prospect of what will come of their illicit affair, is just as suspenseful—and just as gratifying.

...a meticulously crafted triumph of queer romance shimmering with tension and sensuality ... Much of Patrick’s background as a poet can be traced through the novel’s style. Their prose is exacting and scrupulously crafted – with no room for syntax fluff, it can be direct with its high emotive impact. Readers should perhaps be warned of the novel’s Woolfian bent: there’s a modernist-style complete immersion into the nameless protagonist’s perspective that will likely prove controversial to some and endearing to others. Patrick’s thorough consultations with otherness, the physicality of queerness, and the nature of the butch experience carry with them a powerful sense of intimacy and authenticity that is genuinely incomparable with anything I’ve read before. It’s a formidable debut, and I’ll certainly be on the lookout for whatever they choose to write next.

[Patrick] is a hyper-observant stylist; it’s the precision of their prose that makes the Matron such a robust character ... The preciseness of the novel also exposes the shortcomings of language and our lack of a vocabulary for discussing bodies and constructions of gender ... The sex is exactly what it should be – unapologetic, not sordid, and as physical and fluent as it naturally demands.

It pulls along and impresses -- for a while; it can also get quite exhausting, in a novel in which the action is fairly limited ... It's almost all style and atmosphere -- well done, too, but ultimately, along with Miss' own uncertainties, the sense of indefiniteness -- reïnforced by the patter-drone of Miss' telling -- overpowers the novel. Much of that is clearly also intentional -- not least the mentions of the indefiniteness of gender...but, for all the finely-wrought detail of the novel and Miss at least finding a bit of herself in her relationship with Mrs. S, it isn't, as a whole, entirely satisfying.

The drama of the forbidden affair keeps the reader voraciously turning the pages, but on a deeper level, the novel also offers an incisive and nuanced reflection on self-evolution as the narrator navigates the complexities of gender identity, social power, and the dynamic tension between private and public selves. An erotic yet high-minded literary achievement.

...[a] revelatory debut ... Patrick makes palpable the compromises required by secret love, and though the romance is aching and well crafted, what emerges above all is a fascinating character portrait, that of a woman obscure to the world but radiant inside. Patrick wrings the exotic world of privilege for all that it’s worth.