It’s Kerry Hadley-Pryce Week in Outsideleft. Oh wow!
This week, Outsideleft celebrates the release of Lie of the Land, the acclaimed fourth novel from the Black country's Kerry Hadley-Pryce. Kerry demonstrates her unique ability to render the run of the mill middle class ennui, as a never-ending fucking frightening nightmare. Simply put. The thrills within made me wish as I read, for the end of night. OL fave, Charlie Hill says Lie of the Land "flits with expertly sinister intent between the shadows of the psychological thriller, the murder mystery and the ghost story." Today, a brief excerpt, the opening passage of Lie of the Land... What a privilege to have Kerry here with us all week.
LIE OF THE LAND
(excerpt)
There is, she’ll say, a certain type of bird – she’s not sure which – nesting in the oak tree in the garden. It keeps repeating the same three notes. It must do this, this repetition, hundreds of times a day. Maybe it’s a blackbird, or a fieldfare, it’s that kind of shrill, persistent sound. She’ll admit she’s haunted by it, the sound of it. She hears it coming, the sound – she feels it coming – and it’s like a torture, and she’s formed the habit of stroking the palm of her right hand, stroking the broken life-line there, for comfort. There are eyes everywhere – to her, there is – and she’ll tell how she’s taken to standing in the new conservatory, the one they had built, looking out over the back garden. She’ll concede that Rory did a competent job of making it good, the garden. The plants have taken rooted well; there’s clematis starting to creep up the wall and wisteria against the fence, and the new turf is bedding in. She’ll say she can smell it, all that greenery. The concrete, the rocks, the mess, they’ve all gone. All cleaned up. But the secrets aren’t buried, she’ll say she knows this, they’re still there, somewhere. The oak tree, they thought about removing, is a feature now, and anyway, it seems there might be a family of those birds in there, and everyone, everything needs a home. Standing there, looking out, even with the feverish, constant three-note chorus going on and on, she’ll say she’s not sure she could bear to take the tree down now, not with the nest in there. She’ll say she’s not sure she could bear to destroy it. She’ll say this now.
But, see, people are strange, they’re capable of surprising us. And we’re talking about Jemma Crawford here. And we all know she’s destroyed enough already.
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