Discord

‘Jeremy Cooper’s most recent books have amounted to a cogent and quietly fascinating project: to represent the day-to-day reality, and the consistent application required, of a serious artistic life…. In a largely jargon-free but erudite register, Cooper frames the endeavour of both committed artists as they struggle to execute the ideas in their heads. He avoids the clichés of an “unlikely partnership” story…. If they change one another, it’s in barely perceptible ways, the most subtle and ambiguous of which is saved for the final cadence: just the right amount of imperfect. This is a working relationship that is peripatetic and fleeting, but which, for a while at least, alters both lives.’
— Jonathan McAloon, Financial Times

‘Cooper charts the ebb and flow of the women’s relationship with meticulous precision [and] richly conveys the intricacies of artistic collaboration.’
— Micheal Arditti, Spectator

‘Cooper’s novels remind us that an artistic life is all about practice, a way of living: observation, questions, uncertainty…. As a material existence, an artistic life offers little more than the aesthetic trappings of bourgeois security; but as a practice, an artistic life is one of risk, chance, missed opportunities, discordant notes…. The success of the public performance that frames the novel’s trajectory and marks its climax, stands alongside the narrative of a more complex artistic journey for both characters that asks whether success and failure are even the right weights with which to balance the value of artistic practice.’
— Thomas Chadwick, Review31

‘It’s very hard indeed to write fiction about music but Jeremy Cooper does so with triumphant aplomb. Discord is a tremendous, quietly enthralling achievement.’
— William Boyd, author of The Predicament 

‘Jeremy Cooper's Discord is as nakedly truthful a novel as you could ever hope to read. Its characters are completely and utterly convincing and their interactions with one another are filled with all of the loveliness and foolishness and tenderness of real life.’
— Aidan Cottrell-Boyce, author of The End of Nightwork

‘Quietly, irresistibly compelling. Jeremy Cooper’s interior worlds fill you up, become the air around you, conduct the sounds of every day – while you are reading, and while the book waits for you to pick it up again. Discord is an enthralling human melody.’
— Ben Pester, author of The Expansion Project

‘Easily the best novel I’ve read this decade.’
— Olivia Laing, Guardian (praise for Brian)

‘Brian is affecting, funny and, at 184 pages, a skilfully compressed chronicle of one man’s life and the cornucopia of film that enriches it.’
— Max Liu, Financial Times (praise for Brian)

‘Cooper does a superb job of inhabiting this singular character’s point of view, and of deftly weaving into the narrative Brian’s thoughts and feelings about the films he sees. I was delighted by the book’s gentle humor and lucid prose style, and I can think of no finer exploration of what can happen when a person is fully open and attentive to art, and how a shared passion for art can connect people to one another.’
— Sigrid Nunez, New Yorker (praise for Brian)

‘There’s a strange magic to Jeremy Cooper’s writing. The way he puts words together creates an incantatory effect. Reading him is to be spellbound, then. I have no idea how he does it, only that I am seduced.’
— Ben Myers, author of The Offing (praise for Brian)

‘What makes Jeremy Cooper’s seventh novel appealing and convincing is the author’s serene prose and tender, understated empathy…. This is an affectionate, thoughtful portrait of a gentle soul.’
— David Collard, Times Literary Supplement (praise for Brian)