Skip to content
Swansong (Paperback)
  • Swansong (Paperback)
zoom

Swansong (Paperback)

(author)
£8.99
Paperback 352 Pages
Published: 31/01/2019
Free UK delivery on orders over £25, otherwise £2.99
  • In stock

Usually dispatched within 1-2 days

Free UK delivery on orders over £25, otherwise £2.99
  • This item has been added to your basket

‘Swansong is the real thing, right from the start: spiky, strange and contemporary, but always with a dark undertow of myth and folklore tugging at its telling…this is a brilliant novel by a writer - and musician - of frankly alarming talent.’ Robert Macfarlane

In this stunningly assured, immersive and vividly atmospheric first novel from the celebrated musician, a young woman comes face-to-face with the volatile, haunted wilderness of the Scottish Highlands.

Polly Vaughan is trying to escape the ravaging guilt of a disturbing incident in London by heading north to the Scottish Highlands. As soon as she arrives, this spirited, funny, alert young woman goes looking for drink, drugs and sex – finding them all quickly, and unsatisfactorily, with the barman in the only pub. She also finds a fresh kind of fear, alone in this eerie, myth-drenched landscape. Increasingly prone to visions or visitations – floating white shapes in the waters of the loch or in the woods – she is terrified and fascinated by a man she came across in the forest on her first evening, apparently tearing apart a bird. Who is this strange loner? And what is his sinister secret?

Kerry Andrew is a fresh new voice in British fiction; one that comes from a deep understanding of the folk songs, mythologies and oral traditions of these islands. Her powerful metaphoric language gives Swansong a charged, hallucinatory quality that is unique, uncanny and deeply disquieting.

Publisher: Vintage Publishing
ISBN: 9781784704926
Number of pages: 352
Weight: 281 g
Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 21 mm


MEDIA REVIEWS

Swansong is the real thing, right from the start: spiky, strange and contemporary, but always with a dark undertow of myth and folklore tugging at its telling. The voice jags at you, and the plot grips: this is a brilliant novel by a writer - and musician - of frankly alarming talent. - Robert Macfarlane

Like the great storytelling tradition it extends so elegantly, Swansong is all about transformation, whether through love, rage, fear or desperation: a chilling tour de force that draws the old gods and demons from the land, and lets them loose in the most unexpected ways. It is also an utterly compelling psychological thriller, a book you will simply refuse to put down until the last piece of its extraordinary puzzle falls into place. Essential reading. - John Burnside

I loved Swansong: a subtle, supernatural tale told in a present-day voice, unsettling right from the start. The writing is so vivid and charged with energy, it’s truly a remarkable novel. - Shirley Collins

I miss my stop on the tube because I'm so engrossed. - Sophie Gallagher, Huffington Post

Memorably eerie ... When the tension is ramped up in the closing chapters, with false turns and twists galore, we root for [Polly] to the very end. - Ann-Maria McCarthy, Times Literary Supplement

You may also be interested in...

The Pumpkin Spice Cafe
Added to basket
Blue Sisters
Added to basket
Paperback
£9.99 £8.49
What You Are Looking for is in the Library
Added to basket
Orbital
Added to basket
Paperback
£9.99
Small Things Like These
Added to basket
The Housemaid
Added to basket
Paperback
£9.99 £7.99
The Wizard of the Kremlin
Added to basket
I Who Have Never Known Men
Added to basket
The Handmaid's Tale
Added to basket
Before the Coffee Gets Cold
Added to basket
Intermezzo
Added to basket
Hardback
£20.00 £16.99
How To Solve Your Own Murder
Added to basket
The Last Devil To Die
Added to basket
Killing Time
Added to basket
Hardback
£10.00
Yellowface
Added to basket
Paperback
£9.99 £8.49

Please sign in to write a review

Your review has been submitted successfully.