by Evie Wyld
From one of Granta's Best Young British Novelists, a stunningly insightful, emotionally powerful new novel about an outsider haunted by an inescapable past: a story of loneliness and survival, guilt and loss, and the power of forgiveness.
Jake Whyte is living on her own in an old farmhouse on a craggy British island, a place of ceaseless rain and battering wind. Her disobedient collie, Dog, and a flock of sheep are her sole companions, which is how she wants it to be. But every few nights something - or someone -picks off one of the sheep and sounds a new deep pulse of terror. There are foxes in the woods, a strange boy and a strange man, and rumors of an obscure, formidable beast. And there is also Jake's past, hidden thousands of miles away and years ago, held in the silences about her family and the scars that stripe her back - a past that threatens to break into the present.
With exceptional artistry and empathy, All the Birds, Singing reveals an isolated life in all its struggles and stubborn hopes, unexpected beauty, and hard-won redemption.
"Searing... It is a testament to Wyld's vivid storytelling that readers will feel determined to drag themselves through her tale's more unsavory moments to its final revelation." - Publishers Weekly
"A riveting novel... Jake is both haunted by the past and struggling with the present, and the intensity of Wyld's sharp novel grows as the two threaten to collide." - Booklist
"Wyld has ordained a permanently dark life for her protagonist, a stubborn fate that offsets the surprises and the reader's enjoyment." - Kirkus
"A tremendous achievement... A dark, powerfully disturbing and beautifully observed story... almost Nabokovian in its structural intricacy." - New Statesman (UK)
"Outstanding... Evie Wyld is the real thing... She reconfigures the conventions of storytelling with a sure-footedness and ambition which belie her age... Quite as good as Ian McEwan's early fiction." - The Spectator (UK)
"Extraordinarily accomplished, one of those books that tears around in your cerebellum like a dark firework, and which, upon finishing, you immediately want to pick up again." - Financial Times(UK)
"An intensely involving tale of survival, shot through with Wyld's distinctive wit... An indelible and atmospheric novel that will have the hairs on the back of your neck working overtime." - Daily Mail(UK)
"For once, the hype matches the talent... Wyld's writing seems to come from somewhere deep somewhere a little bit unnerving." - The Sunday Times(UK)
"Vividly drawn... When the birds do 'sing,' and Jake's primal tragedy is revealed, it is clever and very unexpected indeed." - The Guardian(UK)
This information about All the Birds, Singing was first featured
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Photo: Fiona Fletcher
Evie Wyld is the award-winning author of four novels and one graphic novel. She has won the Betty Trask Prize, Miles Franklin Literary Award, John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, and the European Union Prize for Literature. In 2013 she was named as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and she lives in London.
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