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    Folk
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    Folk
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    Folk
    Ebook221 pages3 hours

    Folk

    By Zoe Gilbert

    4/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

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    About this ebook

    A captivating, magical and haunting debut novel of breathtaking imagination, from the winner of the 2014 Costa Short Story Award

    LONGLISTED FOR THE 2019 INTERNATIONAL DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE

    'That rare thing: genuinely unique' OBSERVER
    'Will win you over ... Magical' THE TIMES
    'Absolutely stunning. I loved it' MADELINE MILLER, AUTHOR OF CIRCE

    On the remote island of Neverness, the villagers' lives are entwined with nature: its enchantments, seductions and dangers. There is May, the young fiddler who seeks her musical spirit; Madden Lightfoot, who flies with red kites; and Verlyn Webbe, born with a wing for an arm. Over the course of a generation, their desires, gossip and heartbreak interweave to create a staggeringly original world, crackling with echoes of ancient folklore.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateFeb 8, 2018
    ISBN9781408884379
    Unavailable
    Folk
    Author

    Zoe Gilbert

    ZOE GILBERT is the winner of the Costa Short Story Award 2014. Her work has appeared on BBC Radio 4, and in anthology and journals in the UK and internationally. She has taken part in writing projects in China and South Korea for the British Council, and she is completing a PhD on folk tales in contemporary fiction. The co-founder of London Lit Lab, which provides writing courses and mentoring for writers, she lives on the coast in Kent.

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    Reviews for Folk

    4/5

    38 ratings4 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      This is perhaps the most beautiful book I have read in a very long time.

      Starting with the cover it's a stunning collection of the magic and mystery of every day life, a love letter to the cycles of seasons and years and time, a collection of stories about a village and its people, a place that might never have existed and yet seems as real and immediate as my own hometown. Gilbert's prose is sparkling, breathing, singing and sobbing all at once; she writes of nature and humanity like she's composing a hymn and a eulogy. The stories all flow together, connecting loose threads and untangling knots, showing children growing and grieving and learning, showing families falling apart and building together. There are deaths and births and inexplicable magic and it's all presented with such a deft caring hand, as if the book were woven on a loom rather than written in words.

      The characters are memorable and real and you find yourself wrapped up in their lives, in their small griefs and triumphs, in the magic that surrounds them (and sometimes smothers them), in the natural joys that move them. The stories can exist on their own but together it's a beautiful mosaic of a place and a time that never was and still feels real and breathing and true.

      A fairy-tale for grown-ups, I can't recommend this book enough
    • 5/5
      Folk, the title of this book, could be referring to the fact it's packed full of folklore or the fact the author writes about all the odd and brilliant folk of Neverness - a fictional rural village I don't think I'd ever want to visit. Full of strange magic and poignant endings. The author uses this setting to create a tight knit community of characters which all weave together to create some pretty powerful stories.

      I loved so much about this. The folklore and traditions, the setting, the melancholy tone, how the characters age and grow, and the author's writing style as a whole.

      4.5 stars, but here are my individual ratings for each story:-

      Prick Song - 3.5*
      Fishskin, Hareskin - 3*
      The Neverness of Ox-Men - 3.5*
      The True Tale of Jack Frost - 3.5*
      Sticks are for Fire - 3.5*
      Water Bull Bride - 4*
      Swirling Cleft - 3.5*
      Thunder Cracks - 4*
      Earth is Not for Eating - 3.5*
      Long Have I Lain Beside the Water - 5*
      Verlyn's Blessing - 3.5*
      Kite - 3*
      A Winter Guest - 3.5*
      Turning - 3.5*
      Tether - 4*
    • 2/5
      A book or a collection of short stories? The tale of a fictitious village in a fictitious land at an unspecified time. Each chapter featuring different inhabitants with no linking plot. Most involve sex or death and an entaglement of human beings with the natural world. An exercise in mystic nature writing. Each chapter stands up well on its own but the whole book is disappointing. Starts nowhere, leads nowhere.
    • 4/5
      Τhe islanders are forged out of the harsh land of Neverness. The island blesses them, nurtures them and frightens them. Their lives are hard, their hearts become even harder. A father tries to cope with a terrible secret, a girl who is considered the finest bride is in love with a boy who resists her. A young woman has to learn how to be a ‘’proper’’ housewife in an inhospitable family of brutes. A young girl needs to find her spirit to become a true fiddle player. Somehow, the Tale of Jack Frost comes our way, with magic sticks, stitches made with blessings and curses, love and ambition and a strange winter visitor knocks on our door.The imagery created by Gilbert is extraordinary. It is vibrant, misty, even scary. You can see and smell the islands and the dialogue is more than faithful to the setting. Without sounding presumptuous, the only problem is the impression that Gilbert hadn’t really decided what Folk was going to be. A short story collection? A series of fables? A Magical Realism example? All these together with features of Folklore? Even though the combination sounds ideal, there was something in the overall writing that made everything seem disjointed and a little bit clumsy. I couldn’t bring myself to really love any of the characters and I wouldn’t include Folk in my personal squad of memorable reads.Despite this issue, Folk is a collection I enjoyed. It is always a treat to read everything that is inspired by British Folklore and although Folk could have been better, it remains an exciting, atmospheric debut.‘’The wind drums its song at the door all night, a beat for the devil to dance to, leaving the prints of hooves around the house. Winfrid tugs her stitches tight to keep him out. I watch my needle dive through the weft, the stab and the gire, and dream up patterns I’d never stitch, secret rhythms.’’