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'I didn't want this book to end... Beautiful' DAISY JOHNSON
'A natural storyteller' PATRICK GALE
'A gorgeous folkloric novel of water and love' ZOE GILBERT
London, 1985. Joe, father to eleven-year-old Matty, has disappeared, and nobody will explain where he's gone, or why.
In the long, hot summer that follows, Matty's hunt for Joe leads to the ponds at Hampstead Heath. Beneath the water, there is a new kind of freedom. Above the water, a welcoming community of men offer refuge from an increasingly rocky home life.
Fourteen years later, a new revelation sees Matty set off alone in a campervan, driving westwards through Ireland, swimming its wild loughs and following the scant clues left behind about Joe. The trip takes a dangerous turn, and Matty is forced to rely on the kindness of strangers. But safety comes at a price, and with desire and fear running high, the journey turns into an explosive, heart-rending reckoning with the past.
*A 'BOOKS OF 2021' PICK IN i NEWSPAPER*
'Artfully paced, with queer undercurrents, this novel is tender and totally enveloping' Attitude
About the author
Kerry Andrew is a London-based author and musician, whose debut novel Swansong was described as a 'darkly captivating tale of myth, magic and sinister secrets' by the Mail on Sunday, and whose 'To Belong To' was shortlisted for the 2018 BBC National Short Story Award. Kerry is the winner of four British Composer Awards, and best known for experimental vocal, choral and music-theatre work, often based around themes of community, landscape and myth. Kerry has released two albums with the band You Are Wolf: Hawk to the Hunting Gone (2014), a collection of avian folk-songs re-interpreted, and Keld (2018), inspired by freshwater folklore. 'One Swallow' was Kerry's short story debut on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.
Summary
Above the water, a welcoming community of men offer refuge from an increasingly rocky home life. Fourteen years later, a new revelation sees Matty set off alone in a campervan, driving westwards through Ireland, swimming its wild loughs and following the scant clues left behind about Joe.
Report
A gorgeous folkloric novel of water and love... You should read this and you should also read Kerry's Swansong. It's a rare thing to see folklore woven into beautiful, tender human reality with such delicacy and skills Zoe Gilbert, author of Folk and Mischief Acts
