Shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize
An extraordinary, "playful, moving, and wholly remarkable" ( The Guardian ) coming-of-age novel filled with myth and magic from one of England's greatest living writers.
An introspective young boy, Joseph Coppock is trying to make sense of the world. Living alone in an old house, he spends his time reading comic books, collecting birds' eggs, and playing with marbles. When one day a rag-and-bone man called Treacle Walker appears on a horse and cart, offering a cure-all medicine, a mysterious friendship develops and the young boy is introduced to a world beyond his wildest imagination.
Luminous, evocative, and sparely told, Treacle Walker is a stunning fusion of myth, folklore, and the stories we tell ourselves.

lgli/Alan Garner - Treacle Walker (retail) (epub)

Garner, Alan

HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Simon & Schuster, Incorporated

Mills & Boon

Atria Books

4th Estate

Scribner

Pavilion

First Scribner ebook edition, New York, NY, 2022

United Kingdom and Ireland, United Kingdom

United States, United States of America

London, 2021

Treacle Walker is a stunning fusion of myth and folklore and an exploration of the fluidity of time, vivid storytelling that brilliantly illuminates an introspective young mind trying to make sense of everything around him. 'Ragbone! Ragbone! Any rags! Pots for rags! Donkey stone!' Joe looked up from his comic and lifted his eye patch. There was a white pony in the yard. It was harnessed to a cart, a flat cart, with a wooden chest on it. A man was sitting at a front corner of the cart, holding the reins. His face was creased. He wore a long coat and a floppy high-crowned hat, with hair straggling beneath, and a leather bag was slung from his shoulder across his hip. Joe Coppock squints at the world with his lazy eye. He reads his comics, collects birds' eggs and treasures his marbles, particularly his prized dobbers. When Treacle Walker appears off the Cheshire moor one day - a wanderer, a healer - an unlikely friendship is forged and the young boy is introduced to a world he could never have imagined. Treacle Walker is a stunning fusion of myth and folklore and an exploration of the fluidity of time, vivid storytelling that brilliantly illuminates an introspective young mind trying to make sense of everything around him

'Playful, moving and wholly remarkable' Guardian 'A small miracle' New Statesman 'Mastery of craft, resonance and deep feeling on every page' Telegraph An introspective young boy, Joseph Coppock squints at the world with his lazy eye. Living alone in an old house, he reads comics, collects birds' eggs and plays with his marbles. When, one day, a rag-and-bone man called Treacle Walker appears, exchanging an empty jar of a cure-all medicine and a donkey stone for a pair of Joseph's pyjamas and a lamb's shoulder blade, a mysterious friendship develops between them. A fusion of myth, magic and the stories we make for ourselves, Treacle Walker is an extraordinary novel from one of our greatest living writers. 'All the exuberance and eccentricity, all the deep thought and resounding mythology of [Garner's] best work' Observer 'Spare and allusive... luminous and understated' Rowan Williams, New Statesman 'Cryptic, evocative, sparely told and deceptively simple' Carolyne Larrington, TLS A NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR A TLS BOOK OF THE YEAR A GUARDIAN BEST FICTION BOOK OF 2021

2023-01-01