Nature, folklore and psychedelia come together in Villager, the first full-length novel from Sunday Times-bestselling author Tom Cox
'A marvellously inventive and imaginative fiction. A tremendous novel' William Boyd
'A relatable and compelling read ... Anyone would love it' Dorian Cope'Funny, thought-provoking and astoundingly clever ... What will I be able to read after Villager? I'll just read it again, I guess. And again. Just cancel all other books' Adele Nozedar, author of The Hedgerow Handbook
'One chapter unfolds as dialogue with a search engine; others are narrated by the moor itself. A rich potpourri that keeps us busy enough not to worry about what it adds up to’ Anthony Cummins,Mail on Sunday
There’s so much to know. It will never end, I suspect, even when it does. So much in all these lives, so many stories, even in this small place.
Villages are full of tales: some are forgotten while others become a part of local folklore. But the fortunes of one West Country village are watched over and irreversibly etched into its history as an omniscient, somewhat crabby, presence keeps track of village life.
In the late sixties a Californian musician blows through Underhill where he writes a set of haunting folk songs that will earn him a group of obsessive fans and a cult following. Two decades later, a couple of teenagers disturb a body on the local golf course. In 2019, a pair of lodgers discover a one-eyed rag doll hidden in the walls of their crumbling and neglected home. Connections are forged and broken across generations, but only the landscape itself can link them together. A landscape threatened by property development and superfast train corridors and speckled by the pylons whose feet have been buried across the moor.
Tom Cox’s masterful debut novel synthesises his passion for music, nature and folklore into a psychedelic and enthralling exploration of village life and the countryside that sustains it.
- ‘The true appeal of the story is its interweaving of themes and narratives: local personalities, the impact of pylons, the interconnection between past and present, and the relationship between people and the land that, literally, has a voice in the narrative. Villager is one of the must-read novels of 2022’ Matthew d’Ancona,Tortoise Media
- 'An exquisitely detailed, many-voiced tale of people, place and folklore ... a communication with lost voices rich in wonder, longing and exalted psychedelic flight' Mojo
- ‘I was swept along in this novel’s current, watching a landscape unfold to reveal the lives hidden in its crevices. A joyous tumble of animism, love, music and mystery that beautifully balances awe and irreverence: Villager left me with a sense of an ancient longing that is hard to shake off’ Zoe Gilbert, author of Folk
- 'I gallumphed through the pages of Villager as though it was on fire ... Funny, thought-provoking and astoundingly clever ... What will I be able to read after Villager? I'll just read it again, I guess. And again. Just cancel all other books’ Adele Nozedar, author of The Hedgerow Handbook
- 'A relatable and compelling read ... Anyone would love it' Dorian Cope
- 'Tom’s newest book, his debut novel Villager, takes the reader on his strangest and most gloriously idiosyncratic trip yet, on an excursion through interconnected tales that draw the reader off the map and deeply into the story of Underhill’ Writing Magazine
- 'One chapter unfolds as dialogue with a search engine; others are narrated by the moor itself. A rich potpourri that keeps us busy enough not to worry about what it adds up to’ Anthony Cummins,Mail on Sunday
- ’This is ideal summer holiday reading - to be relished piecemeal or devoured in one fell swoop, as I did’ **BBC Countryfile
**'Villager is a marvellously inventive and imaginative fiction. A tremendous novel' William Boyd - 'Tom Cox’s books are hedgerows. All about the journey and not the destination. They delicately link one stunning viewpoint to another whilst providing nourishment for the heart and soul, a safe haven for a host of endangered fantasies, musings and stories' Alice Lowe
- ‘Villager is delightfully convoluted, otherworldly and captivating, immersing the reader in the contours and personality of the landscape and those who inhabit it’ Mark Diacono
- 'Villager rescues its reader from the complacency with which we experience the everyday. The book is as rich as the vast monistic philosophy that underpins it - a synthesis of folklore, nature and the curious psychedelia in ordinary experience that points to the truths in which we find meaning. Tom Cox is a master of effortless, fluid storytelling and Villager is alive with both gnawing edge and Cox's signature flavour of clipped, pragmatic humour which is perfectly juxtaposed with the unbounded imagination of Villager's world. It is a thrilling, comforting and entirely unique read, challenging the reader's sense of both what is familiar and what is alien. It’s tender and dark and strangely comforting. I loved it' Laura Kennedy, Irish Times/Sunday Times
- ‘An extraordinary book … [Tom Cox] is policing that interesting boundary between what is folklore, what is actual history, and what is natural history’ John Mitchinson, Backlisted podcast
- ‘Tom is such an original mind, and brave in his approach to writing, so it's no surprise at all that he has written a novel that surprises, delights and fizzes with imagination’ Sathnam Sanghera
- ‘A glorious ramble … This is an epic, oddball soap opera soundtracked by folk music, birdsong and the rattle of hedgerows against car windows … Its psychedelic tangle suggests that our short lives can nourish the landscape, if we watch our step’ Guardian
ISBN: 9781800181342
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
352 pages