2026 Booker Longlist - Black Bag > Likes and Comments

Black Bag by Luke Kennard (John Murray)

I was at the Climate Fiction Prize winner announcement t when I met the editor of Hilary Mantel’s amazing double boiler winning trilogy …. He then told me he had recently published this and sent me a copy thereafter.

It’s pretty weird like much of the list … an interesting take on the crisis of masculinity which did not entirely work for me first time.

I am interested if it works - it seems a bit much in the synopsis, but I am excited to try.

I am 60 pages in and it’s not really working for me yet.

Well, I loved the beginning of this. And I do enjoy the audiobook! However, I am now half way through, and it feels like there are at least two ideas more than needed. On the other hand, i am finding myself thinking about the novel and the narrative decisions in a way I did not with other books from the list (john of john or all them dogs for example.) Black bag is intellctually stimulating to say the least!

I am also listening to the audiobook of this one, and it’s very enjoyable so far. The humor is especially fun. I am beginning to tire of the premise, however, and I’m only 25% of the way in, so that doesn’t bode well going forward. We shall see!

I’m having a very similar reaction. It is an interesting take on the crisis of masculinity, or perhaps, more broadly, the crisis of meaning, but it does feel as though the novel keeps adding one or two ideas too many.

It’s interesting that Kennard actually said in an interview that there is not really a crisis of masculinity. Instead, there is an old, violent and regressive model of masculinity in its death throes. That, to me, is the more fascinating view. Also interesting is the skepticism of self-help and individual reinvention, and that goes in hand with the commodification portions, which are not a part of the story I’ve enjoyed all that much. It’s all linked, but it also feels that maybe it wasn’t always intentional. An example of that is his comments about how he didn’t write about the crisis of masculinity, when I feel like that’s what a lot of people are focused on.

I can add that I don’t particularly like any of the characters, but I haven’t wanted to stop reading it. It has made me think.

I also listened to part of it on the audiobook and enjoyed it.

Ernie wrote: "It’s interesting that Kennard actually said in an interview that there is not really a crisis of masculinity. Instead, there is an old, violent and regressive model of masculinity in its death throes."

Hmm, that rather puts me off the book. It’s one thing to think it’s overblown, another to be so smugly dismissive. Or to sound like it, at least.

Lee wrote: "Hmm, that rather puts me off the book. It’s one thing to think it’s overblown, another to be so smugly dismissive. Or to sound like it, at least."

Reading that back, I think I phrased it poorly and out of context. He does use those words, but in context he isn't dismissing concerns about men so much as resisting "crisis of masculinity" as the fullest way of understanding the novel. He spoke about the narrator's discomfort with maleness and the pressure to be a particular kind of man, while placing those concerns within a broader crisis of meaning.

I am thinking that the perspective is a bit reduced here. Normally in a sprawling novel with several protagonists, they all have their own stories (often linked thematically). But Black bag feels like looking at several stories from one point of convergence - their connection to black bag. Instead of different perspectives we get these stories filtered through one - and this feels like there are too many themes and ideas, and we get not enough of the other characters. I cant yet articulate it very clearly, but it fits with the crisis of personhood our protagonist expiriences.

Just finished the audible of this one. Definitely not going to be on my short list prediction. I do not think I am the intended audience. I thought it a bit weird. I often like weird, so that was not a turnoff. I just did not connect to any of the characters and none of the activities. I did not like or dislike them - just not folks I care to spend time with.

It is absolutely making my shortlist at this time - very weird, but also a lot of fun.

One thing that intrigues me

The afterword, and articles Kennard has written, says the original black bag was an experiment to verify the mere exposure effect.

But as far as I can see from original sources, the idea was the student's not the professors.

And the inspiration was actually Yoko Ono and her then husband Anthony Cox and a performance they put on - here in London in 1966

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ahjd...

That got picked up by a satirical San Francisco journalist who, in early 1967, gave Anthony Cox his 'man of the year' award for 1966 for founding the 'black bag movement'

And the student took his inspiration from that article which was syndicated in the US press including the university newspaper

The idea was more around eliminating prejudice and reducing sensory overload

The reaction of the students to the black bag was then picked up as illustrating mere exposure but it doesn't seem to have been the motivation.

That’s fascinating. That escaped me altogether but I think the author too.

Interesting. So, in a sense, the history of the black bag experiment itself becomes yet another example of projection. And then you have this novel, which feeds into the same loop.

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "That’s fascinating. That escaped me altogether but I think the author too."

It's an interpretation of what happened - but I'm only seeing retrospective evidence it's an experiment

The author does actually mention it a bit in his Observer article - quoting the press at the time

This may just be the magician’s sleight of hand, but Goetzinger is quoted in the same report as saying that it wasn’t really his experiment at all; at the beginning of the winter term, a student approached him and asked if he could dress in a bag for its duration and: “I was nut enough to allow it.”

NB the full article from the press in Feb 1967 from which that is taken is below (an earlier article made the link to Anthony Cox)

Picture from archives here: https://i.ibb.co/27FSSzbz/black-bag.jpg

Desert Sun, Volume 40, Number 178, 28 February 1967
Student in Black Bag Talks, Loses Mystery

CORVALLIS, Ore. (UPI) - The bare-footed black bag of Speech 113 finally has been accepted at Oregon State University, although he hasn’t contributed much from an oratorical standpoint.
He shows up three times a week, covered from head to ankles with a black cloth sack, and sits Indian fashion in silence on a table, desk, or the floor.
The mysterious student, who moves about with only his bare feet showing, is up to something but nobody seems to know just what. He told newsmen in a brief interview that to reveal his goals would interfer with the results. He said people tend to judge others by their clothes, skin color, features and expressions so he wondered what their judgments would be when these factors were absent.
The man in the black bag arrives and leaves the campus in a car driven by a friend. He said he attends other classes without wearing the bag. But in the speech class of 20 students, his identity is known only to Dr. Charles Goetzinger, professor of the speech class in basic persuasion.
Goetzinger says the strange visitor is not a “plant” or part of a class experiment. The professor explained that a student asked him at the opening of winter term if he could dress in a bag and, “I
was nut enough” to allow it.
The silent student in conservative black got a rough reception at first. Most students tried to ignore him, some were hostile, and one jabbed him with an umbrella.
However, it was impossible to ignore him, and Dr. Goetzinger said students gradually began to accept the “black bag” and even developed a feeling of sympathy. One student admitted becoming angry when another teacher disparaged the mysterious scholar.
“It made me mad,” the student said. “I felt I had to protect him.”
The man of mystery may have shattered some of his purpose when he broke his long silence. For his first assigned three-minute speech in front of the class, he merely stood there. But one day he spoke in generalities about his motives, and the students were disappointed.
“He blew my image of what a mystery should be,” one said. “The challenge was gone.”
But a girl student, in a letter to a newspaper, pretty well summed up the feelings of most of the students in the speech class: “The Bag has motivated us, made us delve, explore, ponder and try to understand what goes on inside us...Above all It has made us leam. It has persuaded us, and drastically changed everyone in the class.”

I finished this on audiobook which really enhanced the experience for me as it is narrated by the author himself. I did enjoy this but don’t feel like I got it 100% of the time.

I actually have a feeling this is getting shortlisted I can see Jarvis and Lockwood being big fans of this book.

I'm struggling with this one. I am not sure I am the intended audience. I dont think.I would finish it if not on the Booker list. Not helped by this statement on page 1, "If you meet anyone as whiny, as disobliging and egocentric as the average narrator of a novel in real life you'd find them unbearable. you'd give then five minutes....... I'm not like that."

I agree he isn't disobliging but I am now on chapter 19 (mercifully short chapters) and he whines all the time. He may be trying to make that whining funny, with varying degrees of success, but he is whiny, egocentrically, a lot.

This is going to be a looooong book. Maybe have to do it as a 50 pages a day job.

I think this will be a long book for me as well. Maybe it's just me being an American who doesn't always get British humor, but it's really not clicking for me.

CJ wrote: "I think this will be a long book for me as well. Maybe it's just me being an American who doesn't always get British humor, but it's really not clicking for me."

I think there is an element of British humour here but not necessarily good humour. I'm a Brit and not finding it funny. 😒

Michelle wrote: "I think there is an element of British humour here but not necessarily good humour. I'm a Brit and not finding it funny."

He would hate to hear that. I read an interview in which he was asked what descriptions have been applied to his writing that he despises, and he answered, "not actually funny."

Which to me is kind of funny, so maybe this will work for me.

Lee wrote: "Michelle wrote: "I think there is an element of British humour here but not necessarily good humour. I'm a Brit and not finding it funny."

He would hate to hear that. I read an interview in which ..."

Oh dear, hopefully he can ignore me in favour of all the dust jacket quotes from famous people saying how funny he is. One describes it as Peep Show meets Fight Club, and Peep Show has never appealed to me. So I'm not the audience and on chapter 30 have yet to even mildly chuckle. 😐

Hope you enjoy it!

I like it better than Helen of Nowhere but thats not a ringing endorsement 😁

I’m finding the humor works pretty well in the audiobook format, perhaps because the author reads the book himself, and his delivery of the humor is exactly as he intended it to be. I’m not sure I’d like this one as much in print. Amd it does drag a bit even in the audio format.

This was great. I breezed through it and that was just what I needed after slogging through Helen of Nowhere. A happy reminder that books can be offbeat and full of ideas without being boring and lifeless.

It’s definitely not boring.

Did not find it funny while reading but thinking back there are a few scenes that might be described as funny. This one is growing on me as I read others. I actually remember what it is about, which I could not for the Irish thriller, which I also read in audio.

I read this after the utterly brutal (to me) The Disappearers, which impacted my sleep, and my brain. I wanted something utterly different next, and selected this. In 13 years of reading the Booker longlist this is the only time I have deviated from the longest to shortest reads, in order. I wanted something gentle and fun. Loony was a plus. So selected Black Bag.

I do not have it on my shortlist because as others have pointed out too many ideas are just thrown together, and in many cases there is little development or resolution.

But...I found the reading experience very enjoyable. Gentle, funny and silly with a very unusual premise. My favorite scene? The purse incident at the restaurant. My favorite character? The dog. And it accomplished the goal I had set it. To lift my spirits from the experience of The Disappearers, which I feel should come with a warning label.

I can see that works. I also read this immediately after The Disappearers although I think the lack is focus, vs the relentlessness of the James book counted against it.

I found this very funny and entertaining throughout - I really enjoyed the narrative voice and the premise, and lots of interesting ideas about masculinity and relationships but also performance and art (particularly abd art - I loved the narrator's description of his various unsatisfactory acting jobs).
I agree with those who have said it's a bit baggy (sorry) - my interest waned slightly in the second half, and there were a few strands that added less to the novel for me: Elliott the talking dog, Birgitta and her Swedish sawmill, Claudio's hallucinogens.
But overall I liked this a lot - it might well make my shortlist.

Only 150 pages in but enjoying this one so far. Funny but not laugh out loud, so yes, quite a British form of humour.

Stephen I think you capture well exactly the strands that did not work for me as well. I feel the book would have worked much better without those (I could have lost the kink bits too).

I agree with Stephen and GY, those aspects were less appealing to me too. But at least I can understand Claudio, Elliot, and the kink. What is with Birgitta?! I haven’t finished the book, so perhaps this will become clearer, but at the 2/3s point, Birgitta is still a perplexing and weird element.

I agree too. I felt there were ideas/characters that could have been snipped from this novel to improve it and make it more focused and coherent. This one really triggered my ADHD and not in a good way. It made reading it all the more difficult for me on top of my not finding the humor that humorous.

I found it intriguing that the author quoted Magnus Mills as his Booker book to read as I actually used Mills in my pre longlist review of the novel - but to critique it. I really feel that Mills would have taken the idea of the other Black Bags and run with it whereas here it was yet another idea that was undeveloped.

Oddly I think this book was the wrong length - it either needed to be tighter at say 100-150 pages less or longer with say another 100 pages to properly develop ideas.

I vote either. He can always write other books about eg NFTs, or one with a wacky dog character, rather than cram them into this

Okay, I’ve finished. This started strong and remained strong for the first half. After that point, it meandered and lost its focus and tried to become suspenseful and also cultish but then fell flat.

I do love the visual of Black Bag in a beat-up swan peddle boat on a backwater industrial canal, but really?

I'm with Gwendolyn. I just finished this one and I was amused and vaguely intrigued for about half of the novel, and then I thought it lost its way and lost focus. It just seemed to get way too silly. I think there were some really good ideas in the novel, and some lovely moments, but overall it missed the mark.

Just restarting this and trying not to prejudge how i know it finishes and the early writing is really good.

Yes, the book definitely starts strong. I was excited by the first 25% thinking we have something interesting here, and it’s legitimately funny in parts too. I wish it sustained that strong start. Overall, I still liked the book a lot, but the first half is 5 stars for me, and the second half is 2-3 stars.

I am just hitting half way!! So that’s encouraging (but also matches my review first time around).

I'm at 60% and am noticing the same thing- the first half was really strong but it's starting to lag a bit. I do find it funny. Not laugh out loud funny but smiles and eyerolls for sure.

There are lots of nice touches eg this time I have been enjoying all the biblical references but I just wish he had not veered into all the stuff with Justine like the parry and patisserie sections … I can’t follow why they would be in literary fiction or how they assist the story at all

I also love the way Elliott has actually read All Them Dogs

Rose wrote: "I'm at 60% and am noticing the same thing- the first half was really strong but it's starting to lag a bit. I do find it funny. Not laugh out loud funny but smiles and eyerolls for sure."

Agree with this. Much stronger first half.

I finished, and ended up quite liking it - best of the four I have read so far. Still hoping to be blown away by a few others, but this is currently on my shortlist.

I paused on this for a while as I wasnt enjoying it, not sure the pause helped as the second half was weaker. Just didnt gel with it really, the humour wasnt strong for me and i think thats my personal preference. Interesting idea for a book but I think it had too many sub plots - I skipped over entirely Sweden and Brigitte, what was that about - and it felt too confused for me as a novel. Not the worst from the list but probably wouldnt make the shortlist for me.

Did anyone think the Brigitte worked ? Genuinely curious?

It made sense when it started. His 'maladaptive daydreaming'about what was covered in the lecture and the Örebro 10-to-18 Study into distance dependence of adolescent friendships

But then logically - and the blurb and even his own comments imply this is what happens - he should have separate daydreams/fantasies about the new topic of each lecture. Not keep revisiting the first one and building on it.

So it doesn't seem to make sense even in the book's own logic.

I read the first couple of Brigitte bits but just felt it added nothing but word /page count. Agree with those who thiught it was too long, needed editing some of the side plots, I liked where it was going with the (view spoiler)[other black bags although it was signposted as coming quite early I thought (hide spoiler)] but that didnt take off enough for me. I also wondered (view spoiler)[if there were other black bags then what did that mean with Justine, was he the latest black bag in her life? And if there were so many wandering around, how had he never noticed them before? Its not exactly easy to hide. many plot (black) holes. (hide spoiler)]

(view spoiler)[ and also why would the students not all have heard of the black bag from other years (hide spoiler)]