A floating blue apparition of the Virgin Mary. That s what Clementine Logan, jaded American, sees from the window of her No. 38 bus in London. This is the first in a series of alarming religious visions, triggered by her new relationship with fellow foreigner Per, a green-eyed Norwegian undergraduate. Set against a backdrop of gritty East London streets and post/pop-everything academia, the relationship with Per grows more twisted, the miracles grow weirder, and soon something s gotta snap. Girl on a Stick is all about breaking: breakups, nervous breakdowns, breakthroughs. Yet the novel is also about the aftermath of a break: what happens after the cracking and splitting; how you can grow new skins or maybe even extra legs. Both blasphemous and reverent and ostensibly an account of a troubled relationship the real target of this novel is not only patriarchal institutions such as the Roman Catholic Church, but also mindless masochism. A blister-black comedy.