Swansong

by Kerry Andrew

0 ratings • 0 reviews • 1 shelved
Book cover for Swansong

Bookhype may earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. Full disclosure.

In this stunningly assured, immersive and vividly atmospheric first novel, 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.

  • ISBN10 1911214225
  • ISBN13 9781911214229
  • Publish Date 25 January 2018
  • Publish Status Out of Print
  • Out of Print 13 March 2021
  • Publish Country GB
  • Publisher Vintage Publishing
  • Imprint Jonathan Cape Ltd
  • Format Hardcover
  • Pages 352
  • Language English