Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2019
Waterstones Welsh Book of the Month for April 2019
'All the stark power and immediacy of a folk tale or a legend...a writer of immense talent.'- Colm Toibin
When Cy Bellman,American settler and widowed father of Bess,reads in the newspaper that huge ancient bones have been discovered in a Kentucky swamp,he leaves his small Pennsylvania farm and young daughter to find out if the rumours are true: that the giant monsters are still alive,and roam the uncharted wilderness beyond the Mississippi River.
West is the story of Bellman's journey and of Bess,waiting at home for her father to return.
Written with compassionate tenderness and magical thinking,it explores the courage of conviction,the transformative power of grief,the desire for knowledge and the pull of home,from an exceptionally talented and original British writer. It is a radiant and timeless epic-in-miniature,an eerie,electric monument to possibility.
Publisher: Granta BooksISBN: 9781783784233Number of pages: 160Weight: 119 gDimensions: 198 x 129 x 9 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
One of the most haunting and beautifully crafted novels I have read in a long time... Davies has produced something quite wonderfulOne of the best books I've read this year...West (...) is so crisply and concisely written,and so warm and human in its economy,that it shames the behemoths sitting beside it on the nation's bookshop shelves. It's a book you can read in a day and that will resonate all year long in your headSlender,stark and utterly mesmerising... The language,lyrical yet pared down,conveys complicated feelings of grief,guilt,sadness and a strange kind of wonderDavies's lapidary prose is a marvel - she creates worlds in a few deft pen strokes... beautifully sadCarys Davies's brilliant gem of a novel glints with sadness and a sombre kind of wonderShort,incredible,violent,uplifting and empowering - how Davies manages to create such an enduring story in 150 pages is a mystery,but she nails it. Do your reading list a big favour and transport yourself to the American frontier to meet 12-and-half-year-old Bess and her fatherWest is both beautifully crafted and entrances to its cleverly conceived endA real page-turner. A magnificent achievementWest has all the stark power and immediacy of a folk-tale or a legend. It is also structured with great artistry,a beguiling sense of form and pace,and a depth in the way the characters are created,making clear that Carys Davies is a writer of immense talentMenace and mordant wit are the blood that runs through these veins,but there's a pulse of wonder in Carys Davies'West. She sees the world and its inhabitants both as we hope they are and as we fear that they might be. An audacious and enigmatic debut of thrilling dimensions,and a halting reminder of fiction's possibilitiesA story of determination,betrayal,folly,and reckless hope written in the grand tradition of the pioneers.You enter the familiar American frontier and shortly are convinced,with Davies'hero,that the mammoths of the Pleistocene still shyly roam the Plains.The seams between imagination and history in this extraordinary story are invisible. I believed every wordIn a way,West reads like some extended fairy tale. But then,I've never stopped wanting to run off and find dinosaurs. Its strength lies in belief,and wonder,and the simple pure clarity of that in an incomprehensible worldWest is a journey and a wonder. A story concerned with value and language,love and absence,life and death. A debut of real distinctionTo read Carys Davies'West is to encounter a myth,or a potent dream - a narrative at once new and timeless. Exquisite,continent,utterly vivid,this short novel will live on in your imagination long after you read the last pageWest proves what-in-the-know lovers of her short stories have already been trumpeting: Carys Davies is a deft,audacious visionary,a master of the form. In West,she breaks open our fascination with fated journeys and the irrepressible draw of the unknown,imbuing the American landscape with her own rare magic,twisting the heart as few others can,brilliantly navigating the tension between narrative minimalism and imaginative opulenceWonderfulA beautifully written fable on the conflict between the quixotic and the mundaneA novel of extraordinary beauty... an accomplished tale of genuine panache...West will remain with you for some timeI highly,highly,highly recommend this... This is a book I was hoping would be one of my books of the year and most certainly will beBrief and brilliant - perfect to slip into the suitcase...I hope to see it on the Man Booker shortlist this autumnDavies (...) has the astonishing ability to capture a life - however idiosyncratic - in the briefest of brushstrokesA haunting,beautifully crafted novelA compact,elegantly written storyIn Davies's slim first novel...not a word is wasted; the canvas is as wide as her brush is fine...There are many worlds to explore within this short bookDavies spins a convincing story... The author has an acute sense of period,and a fine ear for dialoguePerfectly formed...Beautifully crafted and immensely movingA tiny jewel of a novel,but sweeping in its power and scope,is Carys Davies's West...(an) epic tale of settlers and monstersHighly-readable...This well-crafted novel,short though it is,will hold your attention to the very end
Kommentar