West is an exquisite first novel set on the American frontier.
Addled by grief after the death of his wife, and prompted by reports of colossal animal bones found in Kentucky, John Cyrus Bellman sets off on his quest, leaving behind his only daughter, Bess, to be cared for by her aunt.
While Bellman ventures farther into the wilderness, forging an uneasy fellowship with his guide, a Native American boy, Bess traces her father's path on maps at the local library and keeps out of the way of their peculiar neighbour Elmer Jackson.
Bold and lyrical, West is a brief epic, a micro masterpiece about love, reckless determination and yearning for the unknown.
Carys Davies is the author of Some New Ambush and The Redemption of Galen Pike, published in one volume by Text as The Travellers and Other Stories. She won the 2015 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. Born in Wales, she lives in Lancaster in northwest England.
'Wonderful.' Sarah Jessica Parker
'Davies' slim, complex, and achingly beautiful first novel is a sculpture of daring shifts and provocative symmetries welded together by lyrical, fast-paced prose...A masterful first novel—the sort of book that warms even as it devastates, that forces serious reflection and yet charms.' STARRED Review, Kirkus
'West is both beautifully crafted and entrances to its cleverly conceived end.' Times
'West 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 talent.' Colm Tóibín, author of Brooklyn and House of Names
'A tightly knit, compulsively readable tale...Davies' slender novel has all the heft of a sprawling western classic.' Booklist, STARRED review
'Bold and lyrical...West is an exquisite debut that's short in length but steeped in the tall tales of American myth.' Lit Hub
'One of the most haunting and beautifully crafted novels I have read in a long time...Davies has produced something quite wonderful in West. This is a gently seductive book, one that entrances right to its cleverly conceived end.' Sunday Times
'This small book is a visionary and beautiful fable of discovery and dreaming, along with some harsh truths about the reality of American history and its dreamers' lives...the writing is astonishing, right to the heart-stopping end.' Sydney Morning Herald
'Not a word is wasted; the canvas is as wide as [Davies'] brush is fine...She holds comedy and tragedy in equal, delicate balance...There are many worlds to explore within this deceptively short book, which gallops towards its conclusion with a mythic inevitability. You won't be able to turn back.' Guardian
'Slender, stark and utterly mesmerising...The language, lyrical yet pared down, conveys complicated feelings of grief, guilt, sadness and a strange kind of wonder.' Mail on Sunday
'A haunting, beautifully weighted tale, so skilfully and sparely told that it is hard to believe Davies hasn't published anything at length before.' London Evening Standard
'Brief and brilliant...[I]t is that rare thing, an historical novel that gives no hint of the research on which it is constructed but seems to have arisen effortlessly out of a time and a place.' Penelope Lively
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