“The experimental novel, Burns’s third, is narrated by an unnamed 18-year-old girl, known as ‘middle sister’, who is being pursued by a much older paramilitary figure, the milkman,” during Northern Ireland’s Troubles. Burns, the first Booker winner from Ulster, “beat writers including the American literary heavyweight Richard Powers; Daisy Johnson, at 27 the youngest author ever to be shortlisted for the award; and the Canadian writer Esi Edugyan.”