My Name is Yip: Shortlisted for the Betty Trask Prize

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The style of writing is something special, it takes a while to get into and you either like it or not. The story moves between the various phases of Yip's life as he tells the tale of his journey to becoming an adult. Random capitalizations are used throughout, and the use of an ampersand in the place of the word "and" was distracting. A mesmeric and rollicking adventure told by a narrator like no other - one who beguiles, moves, delights and also had me so worried for him, I was on the edge of my seat. Yip's story is not a happy one, it's one of suffering, pain and injustice, despite this, I couldn't pull myself away.

It also took me a little while to get used to the fact that the author doesn’t use quotation marks in conversations and the chapters are very very short (which is why there are 90+ chapters). In terms of plot, I did find it a little predictable and far fetched at times, but on the whole enjoyable. Incidentally, I see the advertising material refers to it taking place in Georgia during the Georgia Gold Rush, but there is no reference in my preview copy to Georgia, and the Gold Rush isn’t really central to much of his story. His debut novel My Name is Yip has been shortlisted for the Betty Trask, the Wilbur Smith, a South Bank Sky Arts Awards, and the Society of Authors' First Novel Award, and longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize. The characters of Dud and Yip are well crafted and I wish he would have done a little more with “Mama”.I found it reminiscent of Sebastian Barry' s excellent A Thousand Moons, with its distinctive narrative style and eccentric main characters from outside the social norms.

Once you get used to it, it reads very easily though - it is very consistently maintained throughout the novel. One of those rare reads that we’ve all experienced, the kind that leaves us with a sense of loss, a kind of “What do I read after this? It was a tough book to read at the beginning because of the grammar, dialect, and spelling but as the story progressed, I got used to it and it because easier.Owen Meany meets Days Without End meets Django Unchained…although comparing My Name is Yip with these titles may be a bit too much praise. He was an object of ridicule and fear, with other children running away from him, which forced him to keep himself to himself, passing his time beneath the old elm tree that he loved. The first part of his narrative focuses upon his early life in the benighted Heron’s Creek, a frontier town full of intrigue and poisonous gossip.

The story has its fair share of poltroons, miscreants, and ne'er do wells, which is always a plus for me. This is violent, anarchic American history with echoes of Sebastian Barry's Days Without End, but Paddy Crewe's take is startlingly original. Both an entertaining tale of gold, murder and the impulse for revenge, and a tender coming-of-age story amid the lawlessness of the American frontier.I had thought this book was historical fiction, but it was more of fiction than realistic or historical. The book is not without some mentions of brutality, violence and mutation which reflects the hostility of the time and is definitely not for the faint hearted. But can Yip get back to Heron’s Creek, claim his gold, avenge his father and be reunited with his mother? This is violent, anarchic American history with echoes of Sebastian Barry's Days Without End , but Paddy Crewe's take is startlingly original.

And, as Yip and Dud's odyssey takes them further into the unknown - via travelling shows, escaped slaves and the greed of gold-hungry men - the pull of home only gets stronger. Gold is discovered nearby, and Yip commits a grievous crime that leaves him with no choice but to flee.

As his mother still lies in the blood-slicked sheets, and Yip takes his first gulps of air, his father disappears without trace. Paul Howarth, author of Only Killers and Thieves * I love the compelling narrator, somehow a cross between Charles Dickens's David Copperfield and Charles Portis's Mattie Ross. In fact, I can be really patient in that regard, but with this book, nothing really of note happens till about page 84, so I thought, "Ok, now things will pick up," but when they didn't really with another 40 pages of reading, it's time to move on. Occasionally during the memoir, he refers to his present life to remind us that he did get through it. My Name Is Yip is a tremendous novel, one that both harks back and burns the way forward, that is built of sentences that sing and roar.