This short novel is intriguing and playful, with even the text shifting about on the page, as though we’re eavesdropping onto the characters’ overlapping conversations. Lanny, is about a young boy who loves nature and lives in a village not too far from London, and who goes missing. He has the regular two parents, and parents’ friends, but there is also another character: the mysterious and mythical Dead Papa Toothwort who is part of the earth and yet can shape-shift to the size of flea or into an old bath. He can slide in and out of people, and he is often angry. What he likes best of all and what makes him happy is to listen to the villagers talk, and he especially likes to listen to Lanny. Dead Papa Toothwort is a kind of modern day Greenman, symbolising rebirth, death, and the green of life. And he neatly compares with Lanny, who is very much a human, but also a kind of delightful fairy child who still sees the wonder in the natural world. A beautiful book.
From the author of Grief Is the Thing with FeathersThe Sunday Times Top Ten BestsellerLonglisted for the Booker Prize'Books this good don't come along very often.' Maggie O'Farrell'A magically beguiling work, a triumph.' Financial Times 'A thing of total joy . . . thrums with rhythm and life.' ObserverNot far from London, there is a village. This village belongs to the people who live in it and to those who lived in it hundreds of years ago. It belongs to England's mysterious past and its confounding present. It belongs to families dead for generations, and to those who have only recently moved here, such as the boy Lanny, and his mum and dad.But it also belongs to Dead Papa Toothwort, who has woken from his slumber in the woods. Dead Papa Toothwort, who is listening to them all.'Startling, moving and overwhelming . . . Wonderful.' Daily Telegraph'A devastating, disquieting and exhilarating book.' Psychologies'Stunning and deeply affecting.' Nathan Filer'A remarkable feat of literary virtuosity.' Sunday Times
