In the lead up to the announcement of the winner of our first Glass Bell award, we're going to be talking a bit about why we enjoyed each book on the short list. Today we'll be talking about The Wolf Road:
When I read The Wolf Road by Beth Lewis for the first time, probably now a good year or two ago, it straightaway became one of my standout debut novels of the year. It wasn’t just me though, when we shared the book round the team at Goldsboro it was loved far and wide and picked as one of our Books of the Month. I’m thrilled it’s now made its way onto the shortlist of the Glass Bell award.
There is such a startlingly strong and unforgettable voice throughout this novel from its main character, Elka, and the books visceral style reminded me of Cormac McCarthy’s fantastic prose. This is a truly memorable debut and Elka is powerful, engaging and she will reel you in from page one. The Wolf Road is an excellently paced novel that will take you on an extraordinary journey into darkness as Elka goes in search of that which she lost, but it is also wildly amusing along the way. The novel has wide appeal to readers of genre fiction and literary fiction, revolving around the hook of a civilisation that has been pushed back centuries by The Damn Stupid. However even with this slight dystopian hook, the book never feels like a dystopian novel, more an extremely powerful western and to me there were certainly echoes of The Revenant.
One thing is for sure, I can’t wait to read Beth Lewis’ next novel because The Wolf Road is fantastic.
Harry (@harryillers)
