West

West is an exquisite first novel set on the American frontier.

Addled by grief after the death of his wife, and prompted by reports of colossal animal bones found in Kentucky, John Cyrus Bellman sets off on his quest, leaving behind his only daughter, Bess, to be cared for by her aunt. 

While Bellman ventures farther into the wilderness, forging an uneasy fellowship with his guide, a Native American boy, Bess traces her father’s path on maps at the local library and keeps out of the way of their peculiar neighbour Elmer Jackson. 

Bold and lyrical, West is a brief epic, a micro masterpiece about love, reckless determination and yearning for the unknown. 

Carys Davies is the author of Some New Ambush and The Redemption of Galen Pike, published in one volume by Text as The Travellers and Other Stories. She won the 2015 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. Born in Wales, she lives in Lancaster in northwest England.

‘Has the wisdom and lyrical prose of a folk tale whose power grips you from the beginning.’ Page & Blackmore Booksellers NZ

‘Wonderful.’ Sarah Jessica Parker

‘Davies’ slim, complex, and achingly beautiful first novel is a sculpture of daring shifts and provocative symmetries welded together by lyrical, fast-paced prose…A masterful first novel—the sort of book that warms even as it devastates, that forces serious reflection and yet charms.’ STARRED Review, Kirkus

‘Carys Davies deserves every accolade she has received.’ Elizabeth Harrower

'West has all the stark power and immediacy of a folk-tale or a legend. It is also structured with great artistry, a beguiling sense of form and pace, and a depth in the way the characters are created, making clear that Carys Davies is a writer of immense talent.' Colm Tóibín, author of Brooklyn and House of Names

'Menace and mordant wit are the blood that runs through these veins, but there's a pulse of wonder in Carys Davies' West. She sees the world and its inhabitants both as we hope they are and as we fear that they might be. An audacious and enigmatic debut of thrilling dimensions, and a reminder of fiction's possibilities.' Akhil Sharma, author of Family Life and A Life of Adventure and Delight

'A story of determination, betrayal, folly, and reckless hope written in the grand tradition of the pioneers. You enter the familiar American frontier and shortly are convinced, with Davies' hero, that the mammoths of the Pleistocene still shyly roam the Plains. The seams between imagination and history in this extraordinary story are invisible. I believed every word.' Salvatore Scibona, author of The End

‘West is both beautifully crafted and entrances to its cleverly conceived end.’  Times

'West is a journey and a wonder. A man leaves what he loves and goes west in search of the amazing. A story concerned with value and language, love and absence, life and death. A debut of real distinction.' Bernard MacLaverty, author of Midwinter Break and Cal

‘To read Carys Davies’ West is to encounter a myth, or a potent dream—a narrative at once new and timeless. Exquisite, continent, utterly vivid, this short novel will live on in your imagination long after you read the last page.’ Claire Messud

‘West proves what in-the-know lovers of her short stories have already been trumpeting: Carys Davies is a deft, audacious visionary, a master of the form. In West, she breaks open our fascination with fated journeys and the irrepressible draw of the unknown, imbuing the American landscape with her own rare magic, twisting the heart as few others can, brilliantly navigating the tension between narrative minimalism and imaginative opulence.’ Téa Obreht

‘A story of determination, betrayal, folly and reckless hope written in the grand tradition of the pioneers. You enter the familiar American frontier and shortly are convinced, with Davies’ hero, that the mammoths of the Pleistocene still shyly roam the Plains. The seams between imagination and history in this extraordinary story are invisible. I believed every word.’ Salvatore Scibona

‘West’s strength lies in belief, and wonder, and the simple pure clarity of that in an incomprehensible world.’ Cynan Jones

‘A tightly knit, compulsively readable tale…Davies’ slender novel has all the heft of a sprawling western classic.’ Booklist, STARRED review

‘Bold and lyrical…West is an exquisite debut that’s short in length but steeped in the tall tales of American myth.’ Lit Hub

‘One of the most haunting and beautifully crafted novels I have read in a long time…Davies has produced something quite wonderful in West. This is a gently seductive book, one that entrances right to its cleverly conceived end.’ Sunday Times

‘Miraculous…So crisply and concisely written, and so warm and human in its economy, that it shames the behemoths sitting beside it on the nation’s bookshop shelves. It’s a book you can read in a day and that will resonate all year long in your head.’ Sunday Times (UK)

‘Brief and brilliant…[I]t is that rare thing, an historical novel that gives no hint of the research on which it is constructed but seems to have arisen effortlessly out of a time and a place.’  Penelope Lively

‘This small book is a visionary and beautiful fable of discovery and dreaming, along with some harsh truths about the reality of American history and its dreamers’ lives…the writing is astonishing, right to the heart-stopping end.’ Sydney Morning Herald

‘Not a word is wasted; the canvas is as wide as [Davies’] brush is fine...She holds comedy and tragedy in equal, delicate balance...There are many worlds to explore within this deceptively short book, which gallops towards its conclusion with a mythic inevitability. You won’t be able to turn back.’ Guardian

‘Slender, stark and utterly mesmerising…The language, lyrical yet pared down, conveys complicated feelings of grief, guilt, sadness and a strange kind of wonder.’ Mail on Sunday

‘This exquisite historical novel of life on the American frontier may be only 150 pages long but boy, does it pack a punch…Tense, captivating and whittled to perfection.’ Metro

‘A haunting, beautifully weighted tale, so skilfully and sparely told that it is hard to believe Davies hasn’t published anything at length before.’ London Evening Standard

‘[A] small jewel of a debut novel…A hauntingly beautiful book.’ Australian Financial Review

‘A debut novel to savour…Small but perfectly formed.’ Times 

‘This novel captured my attention in a way no other story has for years...West is a brief story with not a word wasted…[It] is like being drawn into an intricately detailed Breughel painting.’ Stuff NZ