A small family builds a house in the forest outside the village of Elmet. John is the father, a giant of a man who makes what money they need in fights and doing favors for others. The children are Cathy, 15, and her brother Daniel, 13. The land they possess used to belong to their mother who disappeared from their lives and who sold the land to the man who owns most of everything in Elmet, Mr. Price.

The family lives happily off the grid, hunting and growing their food, building their own furniture and tending to the forest and land. The children go to the house of one of John's friends, Vivian, who teaches them what she can. Daniel loves the lessons but Cathy is a child of outside and usually leaves early to go listen to the animals and roam the land.

But paradise is always ruined. John and a former union organizer create a plan to help the villagers against Mr. Price and his cronies. These men hire the villagers at day labor for a pittance but the rents on their cottages rise year after year. Organized, the men are able to negotiate better pay and lower rents but it comes at a price. John must agree to one last fight for the landowners.

After that fight, a crime occurs and the life the family has been living is ruined forever. They stick together and fight to remain as a family but everything around is against them. The village will never be the same nor will they.

This debut novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2017. Mozeley creates a world that seems perfect yet dreamlike and unable to exist in the world as it is. John, the father, is a man comfortable with himself and his body and attempts to do what is right. Cathy is most like John and is determined to also live life on her own terms. Daniel isn't sure what his life will be but knows he needs these two individuals by him to be happy. This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.

The writing was beautiful and engaging. It took me awhile to get into the story/connected to the characters...but I find with literary prose like this you have to be in the right mindset/mood. But I would recommend!

"…millions of men died dancing in the old style."

Very difficult to review this book. One flaw was the author’s failure to initially engage my interest in reading it. But I persisted and was rewarded for my efforts. Violence ruled the day and the men in it. Brutes and abusers shared center stage along with their opposite: a sensitive, well-read, and unmanly young male narrator. Throughout the book I felt Fiona Mozley had an agenda which is something that typically turns me off. But she is a fine writer and the action remained steady and aimed dead-on to the frightful end. A better read than most fiction, but one I could have done without.

ALL THE STARS! I LOVED this. It took me two days to finish the last 35 pages because I dreaded, absolutely DREADED what was coming. I knew this probably wasn't going to end well for the family at the heart of this story - father John ("Daddy"), son Daniel and daughter Cathy - and I just didn't want to let go of them or their story. (P.S. No spoilers here; you will learn as much reading the synopsis of the novel on its dust cover.)

This is the most Ron Rash-y book ever NOT written by Ron Rash."Elmet" is a debut novel by British author Fiona Mozley and takes place in Yorkshire, England.....but it reads like pure US southern gothic noir. It very much reminded me of Rash’s "The Cove" or "The Risen." I had to keep reminding myself of the setting, even though the dialect of the characters is clearly more Northern English than Appalachian.

In the story, this tight-knit little family loves each other fiercely. They seek nothing more than to be left alone to live their lives on a small patch of land but the landlord and his band of henchmen will not let them be. Inevitably, tensions escalate into a jaw-dropping, wrath-of-God finale – good vs. evil, innocence vs. corruption, might vs. right. You’ll have to read it to find out what happens, but the journey is just as moving and memorable as the outcome.

Mozley’s writing is stellar, lyrical, poetic – just so beautifully crafted, especially for a debut novel. The storytelling is her main concern here – the characters are not very deeply developed but I didn’t feel that was a flaw. They were brought to life by their dialogue with each other and the nascent observations of the teen narrator, Daniel. His narration, simple but profound, gave the book its sincere and earnest vitality

This debut novel was a Man Booker shortlist finalist for 2017. Mozley wrote this in her 20’s – a remarkable accomplishment. This is one of my favorites of the 2017 Booker nominees. I highly recommend this to anyone who loves Ron Rash, southern gothic noir or straight up amazing story-telling and writing.

Thanks to NetGalley and Algonquin Books for an ARC of this wonderful novel. My review, however, is based on the paperback version.

This is a great book about the love of family and importance of tradition in a changing world.

Fresh and captivating writing, a solid debut for Fiona Mozley. Elmet was beautifully written; a gritty story with complex characters, rich world-building, and complicated dynamic. This is one of those books that you want to own a physical copy of to always come back to, and while I don't reread books, this is one I'd like to read again. I look forward to future work by Mozley.

I absolutely love the Mozley's lyrical writing style. She evokes such a strong sense of place.

Extraordinary writing of a "timeless fairy tale". The writer places you in the woods as you follow Cathy and Daniel
and their families. A beautiful story that lets you determine the endings.

First published in Great Britain in 2017; published by Algonquin Books on December 5, 2017

Elmet is a gut-wrenching story of a proud family living at the edge of society, fighting for their right to be left alone. The story is narrated by Daniel, a 15-year-old boy who knows little of his absent mother because Daniel’s father is silent about Daniel’s mother and most other things. Daniel’s bond with his father is strong but their communication has little to do with language.

Daniel’s father, John, is a bare-knuckle fighter, a man of almost mythical stature, the toughest man in England and Ireland. Daniel lives with his father and his older sister, Cathy, who learns to protect herself (and Daniel) with her fists, although her school did not approve of girls who fight back. John consequently took the kids out of school and moved away from their home town. Daniel’s father trusts Vivien, a neighbor, to teach the kids things that he can’t.

John lives an isolated life with his children, eschewing the company of neighbors. He talks little about his past, but he makes clear to his children that they are his world. He works hard to toughen them, to make them strong so they can withstand the hardship they will inevitably face.

Despite his isolation, John helps people in the surrounding villages and farms. His philosophy is, “You take care of people and it always comes good in the end.” To that end, John helps people in their protest against Price, the wealthy landowner who acts as the landlord for most of the people who live nearby. He also helps them stand up to the landowners who refuse to pay fair wages for the work done by those who farm their land.

Price owns the land on which John has built his family’s home. John will no longer do the dirty work requested by Price, so the family faces an uncertain future. Helping the powerless stand up to Price only makes the family’s future more precarious. The plot builds slowly to a conflict that can’t be resolved with fists alone.

Elmet’s theme involves the resentment that members of the working class (or the barely-working class) feel when land that was once community owned is deeded to rich landowners, who rent it to the same people who have always occupied it, while refusing to make improvements or repairs. Other themes spotlight the virtues of honesty and directness, and of standing up for principles even when the battle cannot be won.

Fiona Mozley’s graceful prose contrasts with the broken dialect of the novel’s main characters. Her observant descriptions of land and scenery create a rich atmosphere that connects the present to the past: “The soil was alive with ruptured stories that cascaded and rotted then found form once more and pushed up through the undergrowth and back into our lives.” The novel’s powerful ending is as unexpected as it is inevitable.

Elmet made the longlist for the 2017 Man Booker Prize. The winner, Lincoln in the Bardo, is another fine novel. Elmet is a more traditional example of storytelling. Both books tell a moving story, but I think I would give the edge to Elmet. In any event, they are both rewarding novels

RECOMMENDED

It was hard not to be curious about Elmet, this year’s wild card on the Man Booker shortlist that didn’t even have a U.S. release date until after the winner (Lincoln in the Bardo) was announced. I didn’t know what to expect from this novel, but maybe that was for the best, because what started as a rather unassuming story really crept up on me, and I’m finding this review particularly difficult to write, because I’m so in awe of the scope and composition of this novel.

Elmet (in terms of theme more than style of prose) is All We Shall Know meets All the Birds, Singing, meets Wuthering Heights – a gothic-inspired novel set in the lawless outskirts of British society. The story’s setting, an unnamed rural town, is located on a site once known as Elmet, a Celtic kingdom now a part of west Yorkshire. Fiona Mozley’s sensory descriptions are so vivid, I felt like I was transported straight into the heart of this rustic setting. The novel is narrated by 14-year-old Daniel, an effeminate boy who lives in a cabin in the woods with his tomboy sister Cathy and his father John, an almost paradoxically sensitive and brutal bare-knuckle fighter referred to only as ‘Daddy.’ Throughout the book their peaceful existence is threatened by a local landowner and his family, and the conflict between the two parties crescendos into an inevitable and harrowing conclusion.

Though Elmet is a quiet and subtle pastoral tale, it’s also an absolute powerhouse meditation on violence, gender, familial ties, and societal views on morality. There’s an anger and a restlessness simmering beneath the surface of this positively humorless novel, but it’s not actually as bleak of a read as you might think. There’s a sort of innocence to Daniel’s narration that doesn’t evoke pity as much as demand reflection on the lifestyle of this novel’s unlikely heroes. Mozley’s prose is lyrical and incisive – there’s nothing to do while you’re reading this book but give it your full attention.

I understand why Elmet doesn’t work for certain readers. It’s light on plot and heavy on backstory and its pace is slow, so if you aren’t sustained by its themes and characters, I can see where the word ‘boring’ may be leveled against it. But if you’re the sort of reader who loves a subtle and atmospheric story, this is well worth checking out. This is a solid 4.5, but the more I think about it, the more I like it, so 5 it is.

Thank you to Netgalley, Algonquin Books, and Fiona Mozley for the copy provided in exchange for an honest review.

"Fiona Mozley is a rising star of British fiction ... Elmet is a quiet explosion of a book, exquisite and unforgettable. It is hard not to feel that at 29, Ms. Mozley has only just begun." The Economist

Elmet is a debut novel from British writer Fiona Mozley who is studying for a PhD in medieval history. It it, Mozley creates a dark, unsettling world which matches the darkness and violence of the story itself. This is a brooding study of an unconventional family but I found it engrossing and moving despite its bleakness. This must be the darkest (in more ways than one) of dark horses on the Man Booker longlist but I thought it was very well done and, while enjoyed might be the wrong word for a tale this bleak and disturbing, I thought it was definitely a good read. If one of the pleasures of reading is experiencing worlds far removed from our own, this book definitely succeeds on that level.

Loved this book, and added it as one of my top ten titles for 2017. Reviews posted on my bookstagram and wordpress accounts. (linked below)

Fiona Mozley's Elmet is one of the most lyrical, atmospheric books I've read in some time. The descriptions of this area of rural Yorkshire, and the environment that surrounds the main characters, are tremendously poetic and vivid, yet Mozley doesn't use more words than necessary to get the mood or her story across. It's almost as if she strove for a simple, no-nonsense tone befitting her salt-of-the-earth characters.

In the book's epigraph from Ted Hughes, we learn that Elmet was "the last independent Celtic kingdom in England...stretched out over the vale of York," as well as "a sanctuary for refugees from the law." This is where 14-year-old Daniel lives with his 15-year-old sister Cathy and their father, in a house their father built himself. They are self-sufficient, mostly living off the land around them.

Their father, John, is known for his ferociousness as a bareknuckle fighter. He is a gentle giant yet a man not above using his fists to get what he needs or wants, or to punish those who have done wrong in his eyes. This behavior is inherited not by Daniel, who is happier tending to the family's dogs and serving as cook rather than protector, but by Cathy, who strikes back at her classmates who bully her.

Their life is a simple, happy one, until Price, the greedy tyrant who owns most of the land in the area, begins to cause trouble. The more he wants to bleed his tenants dry, the more it angers them, especially John, who finds himself assuming a leadership position among his fellow tenants, uniting them against Price. They decide on a rent strike, and John defends the group when the bailiffs come to enforce laws on Price's behalf.

As with any struggle between the haves and have-nots, the tension simmers until it hits a breaking point. And that's where Elmet loses its way somewhat, veering a bit into melodrama and slightly less plausible events. While the book's conclusion isn't surprising, it still seemed a bit far-fetched to me, and that was disappointing. I also found a few of the characters, including Price, seemed a little two-dimensional, where there was potential to make them complex, flawed people.

Amazingly, Elmet is Mozley's debut novel, and it was a finalist for this year's Man Booker Prize. A few glitches notwithstanding, Mozley's storytelling is so assured, so compelling, that I have little doubt she's going to have an amazing career ahead of her. Is the book perfect? No, but it is tremendously memorable and beautifully written. It's one that has haunted me since I read it a week or two ago.

NetGalley and Algonquin Books provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!

Daniel and Cathy live with their father on a quiet, remote piece of land, in a house they built with their own hands. Their mother was in an and out of the picture until one day she was just out. While their father worked, they mostly lived with their Gran, their father coming and going for long stretches, until one day he decided to settle down. Most of his life, their father had used his body, a body built like few had ever seen, as a way to make money, either through hard labor, or, most often, through fighting. But he was getting older, and it was time to put that part of his life aside.

In their little house, they lived an unconventional life, getting schooling from a neighbor friend, and spending their time in the woods and with each other. They could work the land, provide for themselves, and needed only each other for company. Their way of life bred in them an exceptional resilience and sense of loyalty to each other, characteristics they’ll need desperately when trouble comes their way in the form of an unethical landowner who essentially owns the town and all who live in it.

The thing about reading books that have won literary awards and the accolades of many is expectations are high from the onset, leaving a lot to prove. While I think this book was very good, and I appreciated it for what it was – excellent writing with stellar character development – it did not wow me. It’s better than good, but not amazing. So, here I am giving it 4 stars, which in my book is a great read, and I feel both guilty and disappointed that I couldn’t give it 5. But I digress…

Did I mention the character development was stellar? Because it was. And the mood was perfection. I loved the eccentricity of the characters, their commitment to each other and their home, their resiliency and their determination to rely on themselves.

But.

I had some issues with the storyline that I just can’t seem to let go. I wish I could discuss it in-depth without giving away a main part of the plot, but I can’t think of a way to do that. All I can say is, either there is something I missed/misunderstood, a key piece of information was left out, or my ethics are vastly different. While I don’t agree with the severity of the consequences, I find it difficult to side with Daniel’s family in terms of the actual dispute. While I empathize with their position, and clearly the children had no part in the decisions that were made, their father could have (and should have) chosen differently, and his stubbornness cost them all greatly in the end.

Ultimately, great writing. Phenomenal characters, perfect mood, and the setting was so well wrought that I can close my eyes and picture it even now. But I struggled to side with the main characters because of the unethical choice their father made, and that put me at odds with the story overall. But still 4 solid stars.

Elmet was a medieval kingdom in current day Yorkshire. This debut novel, shortlisted for the Man Booker prize, takes place in rural Yorkshire. It is narrated by Daniel, a 14 year old who lives with his father and 15 year old sister, Cathy. The two children are being raised by their father, John, after their shadowy mother disappeared once again and died.

They all live with their maternal grandmother in town. However after Cathy was reprimanded for fighting some boys in the school, John decides to remove them from school and move to a wooded area. He and the children build a house from scraps on land that they do not own. In fact, their dead mother had once owned the land but was forced to sell to the local land baron, Mr. Price. John is a large, quiet man who earns a living by an occasional bare knuckle boxing match. He teaches the children to hunt only for the food they needed and to do so with a bow and arrow rather than more violent means.

When John realizes that the children needed more education, he sends them for instructions daily to his friend Vivian, a wealthy woman who lives nearby. Daniel enjoys the lessons in literature and sciences and even cooking with Vivian. Cathy has no interest in the lessons and wanders away from the house when she became bored. She develops into a strong, tough person like her Daddy while Daniel displays a more thoughtful personality similar to that his dead mother.

Then Mr. Price shows up at the family home and offers John’s children ownership of the land their home sat upon if their father would consent to a boxing match with a younger opponent. This offer opens the door to the unspeakable violence at the end of the story.

This book explores themes of gender ambiguity and self sufficiency. The characters are interesting but most are not fully developed. However the story kept me engaged almost to the end. I found the violence at the end horrific and felt the book would have been better with a different ending.

I picked up on this book following the Man Booker announcements, knowing next to nothing about it. While I thought it started slowly (which took me longer to become attached to characters), I raced through the final third of the novel. The ending was phenomenal and completely unexpected. That this from a debut author is impressive; the writing was superb, very crisp and intelligent. I expect a long tail as a discussion group darling, and I will be recommending it to my library's book club. Again, I would dock a few points for the slowness to start, but the end was highly satisfying.

It's hard to believe this is a debut novel! Narrated by Daniel, the novel flashes back to reveal the days leading up to his desperate search for his sister, Cathy after a series of horrific events that tear the family apart. Set in the Yorkshire woods, the novel shows the two young teens growing up with their father, a kind and generous soul who often makes money for the family by fighting others for sport. Uneducated but feisty, the two battle bullies and long weeks without their father, always looking out for each other as family comes first. Part coming-of-age story, the novel is gritty and realistic, thought-provoking and poignant without being sappy. This will stay with me for a long time!

This was simply beautiful. The setting, the characters, the emotional response I felt reading it....all perfect. I look forward to many more books form this author. Lovely.

15-year-old Cathy and 13-year-old Daniel have been living with their grandmother but when she dies, their father moves them to a land to which their family has some ties and builds a home for them there. Their father, John, is a huge, strong man who sometimes will enter into a prize fight to earn some money. He once worked as an enforcer for Mr. Price, the evil landlord of the story. While there’s a violent side to John, there also is a very gentle one. Their secluded life is fractured when Price starts questioning their right to remain on this land.

I’m feeling very conflicted about how I feel about this book. So many parts of it are 5 stars for me. And yet I’m left with too much confusion. I usually don’t mind a book that doesn’t tie up all the loose ends. But this one just leaves me with far too many questions. It’s almost skeletal in nature, the bare bones of the story. And yet I couldn’t tear myself away, compulsively wanting to know more. I think I would like to re-read this book in time but read it with the knowledge that it’s partly a surreal fairy tale. I think my first reading had too much of a realistic outlook and that’s why I was left hung up on many of the details.

It’s gorgeously written, intensely suspenseful and very moving.

Shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker Prize.

Recommended.

Elmet is a timeless story of class in rural England. It could have happened one hundred or more years ago. It is happening now in the Yorkshire village of Elmet. A man who owns the land, countless acres of forest, decides the lives of the poor who need a place to live and to scrape out a living. Daniel, a fourteen-year-old boy, narrates his family's painful saga. Daniel lives with his father and his sister. They once lived with his grandmother, but the kids bullied Daniel and Cathy. John, the father, took them out of school and moved far away to a forest.

John and his children carved out space in the forest and eventually built a house, made entirely from their hands. They lived off of hunting, foraging and a small garden that Daniel kept. John took Daniel and Cathy to a friend's house in the mornings for a bit of tutoring. It was a haphazard approach to education. Daniel became close to Vivienne and loved his mornings with her, talking about all the things in the world he had never seen. Daniel's knowledge of the world was limited to his memories of his mother, his grandmother's house, and the fantastic stories Vivienne told about world events.

The children were innocent in the ways of the world, entirely dependent on their father's brawn to provide for them and the loving closeness of their family to nurture their souls. John Price, the wealthy landowner, intrudes in their quiet life and turns it upside down.

It is at the hands of the greedy Price and his sons that the poor people of the area, particularly John and his children, suffer because they have no choice in life but to work with the very little they have. Price has no sympathy for the underemployed men who live as his tenants. The hired henchmen collect the rent or throw the tenants into the street. The saga comes to a head when Price accuses John of a crime he did not commit.

<b>Elmet's</b> offers an intimate and painful knowledge of life in the rural north that hasn't changed much in hundreds of years. It is a microcosm of the suffering going on there and in other places in the world today. Fiona Mozley writes with authority and a genuine feel for this family and many like them. I was happy to read this novel, one I will not quickly forget.

ARC provided by NetGalley and Algonquin Books.

Publish date: December 5, 2017