It’s Kerry Hadley-Pryce Week in Outsideleft. Oh wow!
Black country author, Kerry Hadley-Pryce, has produced four acclaimed novels all published by hip indie house, Salt Publications. The Black Country (2015), Gamble (2018) and God’s Country (2023) are thrilling, twisty, twisters. The most recent, Lie of the Land, published earlier in January, reinforces Kerry's position as one of the leading figures of the emerging cadre of great British fiction authors - very much focused on now - there’s no infantilizing romance, no sentimentally Angry Young Men, righteously rebelling against whatever you’ve got, apparently to provide lucid social commentary; there’s no destitute down-and-outs riding the bus to wigan pier, equally there are no voracious titans simpering on about their great good fortune, running amok and getting their comeuppance. There’s no what never really happens. Kerry’s characters would likely step from the page to agonize over mortgage rates and trading down supermarkets for the weekly shop, competitive PCP payments and energy price caps, and whether they really did ride the boiled egg lunch trend last year. Except they wouldn’t agonize. You might recognise them. They’re living at the dark end of a street, they’re unwittingly corroded by the comforts of their conformity. They just don’t see it yet.
Throughout the Kerry Hadley-Pryce Week, we’re going to be getting up to the usual ol' OL mischief. There’s a massive interview which took place in various locations to be found in Lie of the Land, beginning at the top of a multi storey car park — I don’t like heights - vertigo is my roman catholic soul seeing an opportunity to escape this woebegotten body and all that. Then, down to the canal - I don’t swim, I barely like bathing, canal towpaths are unnerving.
It just gets worse when Kerry suggests meeting during the blackest part of any Black Country day, to walk with her dogs (in head torches) at dawn across countryside. OMG.
We’ll be on safer ground when Kerry shops in our ‘Happy Shopper’ section (restored for our 20th anniversary year). We’re featuring a review of Lie of the Land (thank you Net Galley) and we’ll get underway tomorrow with an excerpt from the book. Oh Wow (that one’s for us) indeed.
In addition to her novels, Kerry’s work has appeared in Best of British Short Story Collections and many online fiction journals. Kerry teaches creative writing students at the University of Wolverhampton and is involved in writerly orgs to help young writers get ahead.
Kerry is also providing the foreword for a 2025 collection of speculative fiction by her former students, ‘3 Years in Wolverhampton’ which will be available early in 2025. Her commitment to the word is complete.
As part of the launch for Lie of the Land, Kerry be at the Bear Bookshop in Bearwood on January 25th at 6pm. Kerry will also be at the Wolverhampton LitFest in conversation with author and educator, R.M. Francis.
Essential Information
KERRY HADLEY-PRYCE WEEK at OUTSIDELEFT
1. Introducing KHP...
2. Excerpt from Lie of the Land
3. Brutalist is the multi storey car park in Stourbridge
4. The Canal
5. Welcome to the Walking Week
6. The Happy Shopper (#41)
Kerry at Salt Publishing is here
Kerry is appearing at the Bear Bookshop in Bearwood on January 25th at 6pm, info here
And at the Wolverhampton LitFest with R.M. Francis, info here
