Product Details
Simon & Schuster UK, September 2009
eBook, 288 pages
ISBN-10: 1849830045
ISBN-13: 9781849830041
Read an Excerpt
Chapter 1
Description
Beth is an albino, half blind, and given to looking at the world out of the corner of her eye. Her neighbours in the Derbyshire town of Blackmoor have always thought she was 'touched', and when a series of bizarre happenings shake the very foundations of the village, they are confirmed in their opinion that Beth is an ill omen. The neighbours say that Beth eats dirt from the flowerbeds, and that smoke rises from her lawn. By the end of the year, she is dead.
A decade later her son, Vincent, treated like a bad omen by his father George is living in a pleasant suburb miles from Blackmoor. There the bird-watching teenager stumbles towards the buried secrets of his mother's life and death in the abandoned village. It's the story of a community that fell apart, a young woman whose face didn't fit, and a past that refuses to go away.
A decade later her son, Vincent, treated like a bad omen by his father George is living in a pleasant suburb miles from Blackmoor. There the bird-watching teenager stumbles towards the buried secrets of his mother's life and death in the abandoned village. It's the story of a community that fell apart, a young woman whose face didn't fit, and a past that refuses to go away.
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Chapter 1How did you come to write this book?
Well, I had this image of a little kid falling out of a window. I started writing about that in my bedroom about 8 years ago. Things just got out of hand.
"Hogan's writing is so forceful that the extraordinary elements of his plot are made utterly convincing, and more mundane aspects sparkle under his acute observation. Vincent enjoys the 'blind affection' of a slug he allows to climb on him, 'the searching of its beaded horns across his finger'; Beth feels that an empty room 'crushes her like water pressure.' The strength of the imagery supports the non-linear narrative; when the reasons behind the strange state of affairs are revealed, they slot into place with satisfying plausibility. But Hogan refrains from offering complete explanations of why things are as they are, a restraint which respects the complexity of the causes and effects that form individuals, families and communities, and the doubts that remain in the minds of the characters. In this powerful and sensitive novel, twenty-eight-year-old Hogan has achieved a striking debut" - Times Literary Supplement
"The novel seeps into your mind like the subterranean gas beneath the village. It's hard to shake." - Nottingham Evening Post
"While the delivery is graceful, the sense of understated, growing menace is what really holds this book together...As everything else crumbles, the elements of [Vincent's] teenage world start to slot into place, bringing warmth to an already deeply felt novel." - New Statesman
"There's a subtle magic to Hogan's prose, and a passionate concern for the part of the world where this novel is based, which invites comparisons with D.H. Lawrence - but that would be lazy...it has confidence, mystery and an entrancing sense of itself." - Independent on Sunday
Guardian.co.uk, April 22, 2011
..."Such a thing had never before been witnessed in the village," begins Edward Hogan's second novel. "A small herd of ibex skittering down Drum Hill towards the main road, their thick, ribbed horns blue in the small hours, their yellow eyes ...
Telegraph, April 14, 2011
...Some superb nature writing makes up for plot flaws in Edward Hogan's second novel According to a glossary of falconry terms, a hunger trace is a mark, a weakness in the tail feathers of a falcon the result of a ...
Yorkshire Post, March 30, 2011
...edward Hogan isn?t even 30 yet and already he?s had two acclaimed novels published. His first book, Blackmoor, won the Desmond Eliot Prize and was shortlisted for two others, while Hilary ...
Booktrade - Book2Book, January 28, 2011
...received that the trustees were prompted to make it an annual award. Other winners of the Prize include Edward Hogan for his novel, Blackmoor, in June 2009 and Ali Shaw for his novel The Girl with Glass Feet in June 2010. On winning The ...
London Wired, June 23, 2010
...of the judges, called it "an extraordinary first novel - bold, original, tragic and endlessly surprising." Author Edward Hogan won last year's prize for his novel Blackmoor. Shaw spent almost five years writing The Girl with Glass Feet, ...
BBC, June 23, 2010
...chair of the judges, called it 'an extraordinary first novel - bold, original, tragic and endlessly surprising.' Author Edward Hogan won last year's prize for his novel Blackmoor. Shaw spent almost five years writing The Girl with Glass ...
Mansfield Chad, June 4, 2010
...my next 100 postings.The first of the new "batch" as it were is a first novel by Edward Hogan: Blackmoor (Pocket Books £7.99 9781847391261] is the story of a family living in a mining village in Derbyshire, but it's not about a mining ...
Business World, July 2, 2009
... LONDON ? Edward Hogan won the Desmond Elliott Prize for debut novelists last week with Blackmoor, his acclaimed story about a son?s quest for the truth behind his mother?s life and ...
Derby Evening Telegraph, June 25, 2009
...AN author whose acclaimed debut novel was set in Derbyshire last night won a £10,000 literary prize. Edward Hogan, 29, who grew up in Little Eaton, won the Desmond Elliot Prize for his book, Blackmoor. The former pupil of Ecclesbourne ...
M2, June 25, 2009
...The second Desmond Elliott Prize has been awarded to Edward Hogan for his first novel Blackmoor, which is set in a fictional Derbyshire mining village. The GBP10,000 prize was presented to Hogan at a ceremony held in London on ...
The Bookseller, June 25, 2009
... Katie Allen Edward Hogan has won the second £10,000 Desmond Elliott Prize for his debut novel Blackmoor (Simon & Schuster). The announcement was made this evening (24th June). The prize was set ...
National Post, June 24, 2009
...Literary Supplement, and he's drawn comparisons to D.H. Lawrence from The Independent. Now, 29-year old Brit Edward Hogan has been awarded the £10,000 Desmond Elliott Prize for Britain's best debut novel. Here's more from Reuters: LONDON ? ...
Guardian Unlimited, June 24, 2009
...voice' with a tale of an albino in a depressed mining community has won the Desmond Elliott prize. Edward Hogan, who describes his previous jobs as 'grass-strimmer, pot-washer, conservatory salesman, bloke holding the board in Leicester ...
Guardian Unlimited, June 24, 2009
...voice' with a tale of an albino in a depressed mining community has won the Desmond Elliott prize. Edward Hogan, who describes his previous jobs as 'grass-strimmer, pot-washer, conservatory salesman, bloke holding the board in Leicester ...
BBC, June 24, 2009
...Hogan spent seven years writing his novel Edward Hogan has won the £10,000 Desmond Elliott Prize for his first novel Blackmoor. The book, set in a fictional mining village in Hogan's home county of Derbyshire, was ...
Liverpool Daily Post, May 28, 2009
...Man, a wartime saga about the loss of Liverpool?s historic architecture in the Blitz, is up against Blackmoor by Edward Hogan and A Girl Made of Dust by Nathalie Abi-Ezzi. Candida Lycett Green, one of the judges, said: ?The result is a ...
Guardian Unlimited, May 26, 2009
...for the Desmond Elliott prize, a new literary accolade which rewards the best first novel of the year. Edward Hogan's Blackmoor is the story of an awkward teenager who stumbles upon the secrets of the life and death of his mother Beth, a ...
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