For readers of Charles Portis and Cormac McCarthy, My Name Is Yip is a bold, revisionist take on the Western novel set in the Georgia gold rush, by a powerful debut novelist with an original voice.
It’s 1815 in the small town of Heron’s Creek, Georgia, when Yip Tolroy––mute, medical anomaly, and social outcast––is born. His father has disappeared under mysterious circumstances, so he is raised by his mother: a powerful, troubled, independent woman who owns and runs a general store. She struggles to manage his needs, leaving Yip to find the means of asserting himself in an unforgiving, hostile environment. With the help of a retired doctor, he begins to transform his life by learning to read and write, his portal into the community a piece of slate and a supply of chalk.
And then at the age of 15, Yip’s life is altered irrevocably. In the space of a few days, he witnesses the discovery of gold, meets his faithful friend and comrade, Dud Carter, and commits a grievous crime. Thrust unwittingly into a world of violence and sin, Yip and Dud are forced to leave town and embark on an odyssey that will introduce them to the wonder and horror of the American frontier until the revelation of a secret means they must return to Heron’s Creek and the fate that awaits them.
With its colorful description of people and places, comic backbone, and compelling narrator, My Name Is Yip is a bold adventure––a gripping tale of courage, struggle, hope, and brotherhood––that reckons with the seductive pull of the American South and its dark and complex histories.
Praise
“Crewe debuts with a rollicking picaresque set in early 19th-century Appalachia...Yip, who narrates as an adult, is an enthusiastic storyteller, and his relationship with Dud forms the fervent backbone of the episodic narrative. This memorable string of adventures reads like a one-of-a-kind mash-up of Charles Dickens and Cormac McCarthy.”Publishers Weekly
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“What a marvel this novel by Paddy Crewe is, what an unlooked-for firecracker of fury and beauty and rage and hope. My Name is Yip is a tremendous novel, one that both harks bath and burns the way forward, that is built of sentences that sing and roar.”Laird Hunt, National Book Award-shortlisted author of Zorrie and Neverhome
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Sebastian Barry, author of DAYS WITHOUT END“Mute but eloquent, Yip comes thrillingly into our midst to unfurl his singular and singing book of revelations. Murder, gold, lost fathers . . . Paddy Crewe has a 24-carat gift.”
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"I love the compelling narrator, somehow a cross between Charles Dickens's David Copperfield and Charles Portis's Mattie Ross. And like True Grit, Yip takes us on a wild ride."Michael Punke, author of THE REVENANT and RIDGELINE
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Paul Howarth, author of ONLY KILLERS AND THIEVES“Yip Tolroy may not speak, but his voice soars off the page in Paddy Crewe’s terrific debut novel. My Name Is Yip is 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.”
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“My Name Is Yip is thrilling . . . brim-full of humor, strangeness, and charm.”Ian McGuire, Booker Prize–longlisted author of The North Water
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“Magnificent. My Name is Yip is a sheer joy. What a voice, what a story. It’s a glorious novel.”Donal Ryan, author of Strange Flowers
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Erica Wagner“What an astonishing book My Name Is Yip is! I love this book, everything about it.”
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“My Name is Yip is so utterly itself and vivid. I haven’t read anything quite like it. 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. Bold, thrilling, beautifully conceived, and deeply atmospheric. I can’t recommend it enough. Superb to the last full stop.”Rachel Joyce, New York Times bestselling author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
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"A well-considered look at the American South. . . an entertaining piece of Americana, with prose at once lush and convincingly down home.”Criminal Element
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“Paddy Crewe’s debut novel is strong . . . a jaunt through old Americana with well-expressed characters and interesting events . . . the writing sparkles and his character-work is perhaps second to none.”Virginia Living
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