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‘I can’t recommend it enough’ Rachel Joyce, author of Miss Benson’s Beetle
‘Singular and singing’ Sebastian Barry, author of Days Without End
‘Magnificent’ Donal Ryan, author of Strange Flowers

***A New Statesman ‘most anticipated’ debut 2022***

The year is 1815. One October night in the small town of Heron’s Creek, Georgia, Yip Tolroy is born, the cord snaked around his fragile neck, his skin a deathly white. As his mother still lies in the blood-slicked sheets, and Yip takes his first gulps of air, his father disappears without trace. By the time Yip reaches his fifteenth year he has not spoken a word – he is mute, friendless, an outcast. But his life is about to change irrevocably.

Gold is discovered nearby, and Yip commits a grievous crime that leaves him with no choice but to flee. In the company of a new and unlikely comrade, Dud Carter, Yip must take to the road, embarking on a journey that will thrust him unwittingly into a world of menace and violence, of lust and revenge. And, as Yip and Dud’s odyssey takes them further into the unknown – via travelling shows, escaped slaves and the greed of gold-hungry men – the pull of home only gets stronger…

‘I love the compelling narrator… Like True Grit, Yip takes us on a wild ride.’ Michael Punke, author of The Revenant and Ridgeline