📖 Featured Book of the Month ~ The Swallowed Man by Edward Carey

Gallic Books
4 April 2022

My thanks to the publishers for my copy of this book

A strange and beautiful take on the classic Pinocchio story by the acclaimed author of Little and B: A Year in Plagues and Pencils. 

I am writing this account, in another man’s book, by candlelight, inside the belly of a fish. I have been eaten. I have been eaten, yet I am living still. From the acclaimed author of Little comes this beautiful and haunting imagining of the years Geppetto spends within the belly of a sea beast. Drawing upon the Pinocchio story while creating something entirely his own, Carey tells an unforgettable tale of fatherly love and loss, pride and regret, and of the sustaining power of art and imagination.

📖 My Review ..

Edward Carey's imagination never fails to surprise me and in The Swallowed Man he gives full range to his creative process in his interpretation of the story of Geppetto who finds himself in the belly of a great sea beast. During this time Geppetto reflects on the profound loss of his son, which is all the more poignant when we learn that he has been searching for the boy he created out of wood. This son being, of course, Pinocchio, and in shedding light on an old tale, the author takes us deep into a story which is eerily beautiful and magically tender.

Filled with the author's own quirky black and white drawings, which do much to enhance the text, the story has all the trademarks of his fertile imagination. Dark, occasionally dismal, but always original, and highly inventive, The Swallowed Man is a creative delve into the profound effects of loneliness and loss.

Just because it's so quirkily different I am delighted to make The Swallowed Man my Featured Book of the Month for April.

*The Swallowed Man is to be published by Gallic Books on the 4th April and is available to pre-order from wherever you buy good books.

🍷 Best Read with.. a bottle of wine and some raisins

About the Author

Edward Carey is a novelist, visual artist and playwright. He is the author of three acclaimed novels, Observatory Mansions, Alva & Irva and Little. Born in England, he teaches at the University of Texas at Austin. 

Twitter @EdwardCarey70 #TheSwallowedMan

@BelgraviaB