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Published Sep 2020
368 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publication Information
The lives of three women weave together across centuries in the dazzling new book from the Granta Best of Young British Novelist and author of All the Birds, Singing.
Surging out of the sea, the Bass Rock has always borne witness to the lives that pass under its shadow on the Scottish mainland. And across the centuries, the fates of three women are inextricably linked to this place and to one another.
Sarah, accused of being a witch, is fleeing for her life.
Ruth, in the aftermath of the Second World War, is navigating a new marriage and the strange waters of the local community.
Six decades later, Viv, still mourning the death of her father, is cataloguing Ruth's belongings in the now-empty house.
As each woman's story unfolds, it becomes increasingly clear that their choices are circumscribed, in ways big and small, by the men who seek to control them. But in sisterhood there is also the possibility of survival and a new way of life. Intricately crafted and compulsively readable, The Bass Rock burns bright with love and fury--a devastating indictment of violence against women and an empowering portrait of their resilience through the ages.
"Time and time again, Wyld artfully proves the female body knows (even if the mind won't accept) the dangers lurking all around. A haunting survival tale that lingers long after the last page." - Kirkus Reviews
"A gothic novel, a family saga and a ghost story rolled into one...Psychologically fearless...Searingly controlled...Wyld is a genius of contrasting voices and revealed connections." - The Guardian (UK)
"The modern sections feel a little like Ali Smith's novels crossed with the TV series Fleabag...There's much to admire in its little miracles of observation...Wyld is also wonderful at describing moments of sudden lust and violence. And she knows how to maintain suspense, what to withhold and when to reveal it—right up to the spine-chilling last line." - The Sunday Times (UK)
"A multilayered masterpiece; vivid, chilling, leaping jubilantly through space and time, it's a jaw dropping novel that confirms Wyld as one of our most gifted young writers." - Alex Preston, Observer (UK)
"Wyld is unhesitatingly brave in her writing...Her delineation of the [post-war] era is cut-glass perfect...Her prose shines, even as it devours." - Financial Times (UK)
"Amazingly good. The Bass Rock will fill the air around you with angry ghosts and you will be glad to be in their company." - Adam Foulds, Booker Finalist, author of The Quickening Maze
"The Bass Rock is a bewitching and atmospheric novel, laced with dread. It reveals the haunted house of society, with all its echoes of damaged and extinguished lives, but is also illuminated by beautiful observation about people, and the timelessness of their capacity for both violence and empathy." - James Scudamore, author of Heliopolis
"A dark, gristly marvel of a novel. The Bass Rock held me in thrall from cover to cover. Evie Wyld is a gothic genius: her narrative of the violence inflicted on women throughout the centuries and the seething, female anger left in its wake left me with a deep sense of disquiet that will doubtless remain for years to come." - Hannah Kent, author of Burial Rites
This information about The Bass Rock was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Fiona Fletcher
Evie Wyld was born in London and grew up in Australia and South London. She studied creative writing at Bath Spa and Goldsmiths University. Her first novel, After the Fire, a Still Small Voice, won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and a Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for New Writers, the Commonwealth Prize and the International IMPAC Dublin literary award. In 2013 she was included on Granta Magazine's once a decade Best of Young British Novelists list.
Her second novel All the Birds, Singing won the Miles Franklin Award, the Encore Award and the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize, was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Prize, the James Tait Black Prize and the Sky Arts Times Breakthrough Award and longlisted for the Stella Prize and the Bailey's Women's Prize for ...
... Full Biography
Author Interview
Link to Evie Wyld's Website
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