A event held at Bookhaus on Tuesday 6th May. The event starts at 18:00.
We are delighted to be hosting a launch for Saba Sams debut novel, following upon the success of her short story collection 'Send Nudes'.
Jules has been divorced from her ex-husband Leon for five years, but she still works alongside him at Gunk, the grotty student nightclub he owns in central Brighton. She spends her nights serving shots and watching, from behind the bar, as Leon flirts with students on the dancefloor.
But then Leon hires nineteen-year-old Nim to work the bar – and her arrival jolts Jules awake for the first time in years. When Nim discovers she’s pregnant, Jules agrees to help. As the months pass, and the relationship between the two women grows increasingly intimate and perplexing, it emerges that Nim has her own unexpected gifts to give.
Now, alone in her small flat, Jules is holding a baby, just twenty-four hours old, who still smells of Nim. But no one knows where Nim is, or if she’s coming back. What could the future – for Jules, Nim, and this unnamed baby – possibly look like?
Raw, exhilarating, tender and wise, Gunk is an electrifying debut novel exploring love and desire, safety and destruction, chaos and control – and family in all its forms.
Saba will be here at bookhaus to discuss her novel with us, in conversation with Claire Carroll (The Unreliable Nature Writer). Tickets cost £6 and include a glass of wine or a soft drink and £2 off the book.
*A 2025 BOOK TO WATCH OUT FOR IN
THE GUARDIAN, THE SUNDAY TIMES, INDEPENDENT, THE IRISH TIMES,
ELLE, COSMO, SERVICE95*
From the prize-winning author of the smash hit Send Nudes - An electrifying debut exploring love and desire, chaos and control, and family in all its forms
'A novel both quietly devastating and shimmeringly, acutely, observed'
SOPHIE MACKINTOSH
'An immersive story about love and the softening borders around what family can be'
SHEENA PATEL
'A really delicate portrait of motherhood’
NICOLA DINAN
'Compulsively readable, intelligent and strange, Gunk is a beautiful and original exploration of what it means to be in kinship with other people. This is a striking and special book’
OISÍN McKENNA
‘Gunk, the scuzzy nightclub. Gunk, the shining, beautiful novel. This exceptional exploration of love and possibility remained with me long after I'd finished reading’
WENDY ERSKINE
‘Saba Sams finds beauty in grit and dirt. She elevates sticky dance floors, dirty bedsits and scuzzy seaside towns, drawing attention to the meaning our lives make from within the mundane. Gunk is a nuanced exploration of friendship, queerness and love, challenging our perceptions of what it means to be a mother, and what itmeans to care’
JESSICA ANDREWS
Entry requirements: no age restrictions
Jules has been divorced from her ex-husband Leon for five years, but she still works alongside him at Gunk, the grotty student nightclub he owns in central Brighton. She spends her nights serving shots and watching, from behind the bar, as Leon flirts with students on the dancefloor.
But then Leon hires nineteen-year-old Nim to work the bar – and her arrival jolts Jules awake for the first time in years. When Nim discovers she’s pregnant, Jules agrees to help. As the months pass, and the relationship between the two women grows increasingly intimate and perplexing, it emerges that Nim has her own unexpected gifts to give.
Now, alone in her small flat, Jules is holding a baby, just twenty-four hours old, who still smells of Nim. But no one knows where Nim is, or if she’s coming back. What could the future – for Jules, Nim, and this unnamed baby – possibly look like?
Raw, exhilarating, tender and wise, Gunk is an electrifying debut novel exploring love and desire, safety and destruction, chaos and control – and family in all its forms.
Saba will be here at bookhaus to discuss her novel with us, in conversation with Claire Carroll (The Unreliable Nature Writer). Tickets cost £6 and include a glass of wine or a soft drink and £2 off the book.
*A 2025 BOOK TO WATCH OUT FOR IN
THE GUARDIAN, THE SUNDAY TIMES, INDEPENDENT, THE IRISH TIMES,
ELLE, COSMO, SERVICE95*
From the prize-winning author of the smash hit Send Nudes - An electrifying debut exploring love and desire, chaos and control, and family in all its forms
'A novel both quietly devastating and shimmeringly, acutely, observed'
SOPHIE MACKINTOSH
'An immersive story about love and the softening borders around what family can be'
SHEENA PATEL
'A really delicate portrait of motherhood’
NICOLA DINAN
'Compulsively readable, intelligent and strange, Gunk is a beautiful and original exploration of what it means to be in kinship with other people. This is a striking and special book’
OISÍN McKENNA
‘Gunk, the scuzzy nightclub. Gunk, the shining, beautiful novel. This exceptional exploration of love and possibility remained with me long after I'd finished reading’
WENDY ERSKINE
‘Saba Sams finds beauty in grit and dirt. She elevates sticky dance floors, dirty bedsits and scuzzy seaside towns, drawing attention to the meaning our lives make from within the mundane. Gunk is a nuanced exploration of friendship, queerness and love, challenging our perceptions of what it means to be a mother, and what itmeans to care’
JESSICA ANDREWS
Entry requirements: no age restrictions
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