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The Gallopers
From the author of The Whale Tattoo, Winner of the Polari First Book Prize 2023
1953. Eli is nineteen years old and lives alongside a cursed field with his strange aunt Dreama. Six months before, his mother disappeared during the North Sea flood. Unsure of his place in the world and of the man he is becoming, Eli is ready to run. Shane Wright is a man with plenty to hide. Caught in a complicated relationship with Eli, Shane is desperate to maintain the double life that he has created for himself. Then Jimmy Smart appears. Jimmy Smart, the mysterious showman who turns the gallopers at the fair. Under his watchful gaze, Eli discovers a world he knows nothing about with rules he cannot understand. Three men bound together in a blistering story that spans 30 years, from 1953 into the 1980s and the AIDS epidemic, The Gallopers is a visceral and mesmerising novel of deceit, desire and unspeakable loss.
1953. Eli is nineteen years old and lives alongside a cursed field with his strange aunt Dreama. Six months before, his mother disappeared during the North Sea flood. Unsure of his place in the world and of the man he is becoming, Eli is ready to run. Shane Wright is a man with plenty to hide. Caught in a complicated relationship with Eli, Shane is desperate to maintain the double life that he has created for himself. Then Jimmy Smart appears. Jimmy Smart, the mysterious showman who turns the gallopers at the fair. Under his watchful gaze, Eli discovers a world he knows nothing about with rules he cannot understand. Three men bound together in a blistering story that spans 30 years, from 1953 into the 1980s and the AIDS epidemic, The Gallopers is a visceral and mesmerising novel of deceit, desire and unspeakable loss.
198 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 25, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
November 19, 2023
✰ 2 stars ✰
“I’m mad at Dreama and God and Jimmy Smart for stirring something inside I haven’t any name for. Mostly I’m mad at myself.
Desire is cunning like that.”
While reading The Gallopers I was in so much pain. Not because the story was that heart-breaking, because the writing was pure torture to get through. And I blame the blurb - 'Three men bound together in a blistering story that spans 30 years, from 1953 into the 1980s and the AIDS epidemic' - which sadly didn't even cover up half of what this premise promised to depict. 😮💨
The story is divided into three parts - 1958 - 1980 - 1959 - told through the eyes of 19-year-old Eli Stone living in the rural South. When he was fifteen years old, he was caught in a compromising situation with one of his classmates, Shane Wright, which would forever haunt the two of them. While he struggles to move beyond that incriminating day, he starts up a romantic relationship with one of his aunt Dreama's field-hands, Jimmy Smart, while also trying to better understand how he perceives himself differently from other men and why his feminine sensibilities are one that draw scorn and ridicule from the discerning eyes of his peers.
“Because the whole time Jimmy Smart talks I can see where our being here is heading. Him wanting to prove he’s something other than what he is. When what I want is to be in black barn. Laid out together.
Two of us still unclothed. Tracing trails with our fingertips on damp skin. Disappearing into otherness.”
I was interested to see where Eli's story would lead to - 'born with a fondness for pretty things, keeping my fingernails clean, hair combed. And a desire to gaze at men in a way that would bring me more misfortune than not' - he had the potential to be a character that I hoped would leave a lasting impression. The feeling of loneliness was prevalent in his words, and the loss of his mother was something that was believable. 👍🏻👍🏻 'Eli Stone— You ever gonna tell me the truth about this field? Cuz I know this dirt was cursed way before the flood went around it, Jimmy Smart says.' I liked the way the floods were described and this dreariness of the southern lifestyle at that time was something that I felt.
The distinctive way in which the author portrayed Eli's relationship with Jimmy, an older man who 'blew in like a whirlwind of sorts. Full of illusions, stirring everything up. A man more alive than any I’d ever gazed upon' was intriguing and I hoped to see what would come of it, especially in comparison to how Eli was treated by Shane. 🥺 Amidst cruel actions and even crueler taunts, Eli tries to find a balance to his life -wrestling with his own inner desires to try and make himself feel valued - both as a man and for someone to love him as he is. But, be as much as this story carried the potential to be something noteworthy - it galloped through my mind as quickly as this story unfolded. 😔
For starters, there were no quotation marks. None! 😩 The dialogue, itself, didn't feature any name variations between the ones it involved, except at the end of the conversation, where we get to know who gets the final say. Just so, you know, the reader can know who's speaking when. Maybe this is a radical new way of speaking, but it didn't charm me in the slightest. And I don't mind short clipped sentences, when used not so frequently, but these were fragments! 'Finish dressing. And go back outside. Inside his motorcar I wind down the window all the way. The breeze is cool against my neck. Hair still damp from before.' 🙅🏻♀️ Short phrases that I think were attempting to evoke some form of deep intellectual thinking, but in fact, just perturbed me. Once or twice I can handle, but so many other times, that I couldn't take it anymore. 😣
But, I think the defining factor was when the 2nd part shifted to the 1980s ---- told in a screenplay format - that didn't even feature the characters
I was like 'what?' - and it didn't even make sense!?? 😕 Was it meant to be an allegorical representation of the narrator's life? Is it supposed to be symbolic of what his life was going to be? 🤦🏻♀️ I appreciate literary fiction, and sometimes I feel that maybe I'm not smart enough to fully understand it, but this inclusion and shift went completely over my head and out the window. Because that ending just left me baffled that after all what took place or you telling me that this is Eli's future??? I have a slight inkling of what it was trying to achieve - but it was so abstractly depicted that in the end, it was neither impressive or impactful - just nonsensical. 🙎🏻♀️
It was just too confusing for me, and if there's someone who has more patience and tolerance who can make an educated guess to explain it to me, I'll be more than happy to read it again with a fresher perspective. For now, the memory of this story has galloped through my head as quickly as it raced through it's storyline. 😐
Thank you to Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
“I’m mad at Dreama and God and Jimmy Smart for stirring something inside I haven’t any name for. Mostly I’m mad at myself.
Desire is cunning like that.”
While reading The Gallopers I was in so much pain. Not because the story was that heart-breaking, because the writing was pure torture to get through. And I blame the blurb - 'Three men bound together in a blistering story that spans 30 years, from 1953 into the 1980s and the AIDS epidemic' - which sadly didn't even cover up half of what this premise promised to depict. 😮💨
The story is divided into three parts - 1958 - 1980 - 1959 - told through the eyes of 19-year-old Eli Stone living in the rural South. When he was fifteen years old, he was caught in a compromising situation with one of his classmates, Shane Wright, which would forever haunt the two of them. While he struggles to move beyond that incriminating day, he starts up a romantic relationship with one of his aunt Dreama's field-hands, Jimmy Smart, while also trying to better understand how he perceives himself differently from other men and why his feminine sensibilities are one that draw scorn and ridicule from the discerning eyes of his peers.
“Because the whole time Jimmy Smart talks I can see where our being here is heading. Him wanting to prove he’s something other than what he is. When what I want is to be in black barn. Laid out together.
Two of us still unclothed. Tracing trails with our fingertips on damp skin. Disappearing into otherness.”
I was interested to see where Eli's story would lead to - 'born with a fondness for pretty things, keeping my fingernails clean, hair combed. And a desire to gaze at men in a way that would bring me more misfortune than not' - he had the potential to be a character that I hoped would leave a lasting impression. The feeling of loneliness was prevalent in his words, and the loss of his mother was something that was believable. 👍🏻👍🏻 'Eli Stone— You ever gonna tell me the truth about this field? Cuz I know this dirt was cursed way before the flood went around it, Jimmy Smart says.' I liked the way the floods were described and this dreariness of the southern lifestyle at that time was something that I felt.
The distinctive way in which the author portrayed Eli's relationship with Jimmy, an older man who 'blew in like a whirlwind of sorts. Full of illusions, stirring everything up. A man more alive than any I’d ever gazed upon' was intriguing and I hoped to see what would come of it, especially in comparison to how Eli was treated by Shane. 🥺 Amidst cruel actions and even crueler taunts, Eli tries to find a balance to his life -wrestling with his own inner desires to try and make himself feel valued - both as a man and for someone to love him as he is. But, be as much as this story carried the potential to be something noteworthy - it galloped through my mind as quickly as this story unfolded. 😔
For starters, there were no quotation marks. None! 😩 The dialogue, itself, didn't feature any name variations between the ones it involved, except at the end of the conversation, where we get to know who gets the final say. Just so, you know, the reader can know who's speaking when. Maybe this is a radical new way of speaking, but it didn't charm me in the slightest. And I don't mind short clipped sentences, when used not so frequently, but these were fragments! 'Finish dressing. And go back outside. Inside his motorcar I wind down the window all the way. The breeze is cool against my neck. Hair still damp from before.' 🙅🏻♀️ Short phrases that I think were attempting to evoke some form of deep intellectual thinking, but in fact, just perturbed me. Once or twice I can handle, but so many other times, that I couldn't take it anymore. 😣
But, I think the defining factor was when the 2nd part shifted to the 1980s ---- told in a screenplay format - that didn't even feature the characters
I was like 'what?' - and it didn't even make sense!?? 😕 Was it meant to be an allegorical representation of the narrator's life? Is it supposed to be symbolic of what his life was going to be? 🤦🏻♀️ I appreciate literary fiction, and sometimes I feel that maybe I'm not smart enough to fully understand it, but this inclusion and shift went completely over my head and out the window. Because that ending just left me baffled that after all what took place or you telling me that this is Eli's future??? I have a slight inkling of what it was trying to achieve - but it was so abstractly depicted that in the end, it was neither impressive or impactful - just nonsensical. 🙎🏻♀️
It was just too confusing for me, and if there's someone who has more patience and tolerance who can make an educated guess to explain it to me, I'll be more than happy to read it again with a fresher perspective. For now, the memory of this story has galloped through my head as quickly as it raced through it's storyline. 😐
Thank you to Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
November 20, 2024
(revised for readability in November 2024).
This is a novel of almost unimaginable beauty both in its story and the way it is told and it is hard to speak of the novel without understanding the time of its action and setting or, if that sounds to prescriptive, to be open to enjoying differences of place and time. If you want a 'gay' MM romance that reflects the world of today, in other words a historical novel that treats history as a costume then this not for you. But feel free to dislike it, so many GR reviewers already have.
The novel is set in the East Anglian Broads, a vast area of flatlands that were once the power house of England's wealth when it came from wool (the area is dotted with vast medieval parish churches as large as cathedrals built with some of the wealth the wool trade produced). It is flat and featureless, the winds that blow in from Siberia mean there are virtually no trees or hedgerows. The people who live there are often described as dour, like the landscape, but laconic is closer to the truth. Just because someone doesn't say much doesn't mean they don't have anything to say. Their sparse elliptical way of speaking requires attention. The period for this novel is towards the end of 1953, a year which began with the East of England ravaged by terrible floods (the 1953 North Sea floods also devastated Scotland, Belgium and the Netherlands but has been largely forgotten in England because it devastated a little known part of the country). As an example of how to write a 'historical' novel 'The Gallopers' is a masterclass anyone attempting such a novel should read. The amount of 'historical' detail and information is minimal, but all of it is essential to, and arises naturally from, the story. It fixes the story firmly in a period but leaves the story free to speak easily and directly to readers of any time and place.
I couldn't help noticing that of the 13 reviews on Goodreads (as of July 2024) a distressingly large number failed to see the novel's qualities or appreciate them and I will let the following statement stand for all their varied criticisms:
"...you can't write an entire book solely with short sentences..."
But this is not a novel of short sentences, it is novel in the unique, monosyllabic brevity of the speech of the East Anglian broads. It is as culturally specific and unique to its area as the language you will find 'Shuggie Bain' by Douglas Stuart is to Glasgow. When I read it I hear the voices and accents (though I am far from being native to the area) accurately transcribed onto the page but clearly this hasn't been recognised by many reviewers (and the criticism comes from UK and USA reviewers). It made me wonder, if the subtleties of Ransom's English are so completely lost on English readers who have no lived experience of the people and area his novel is about and set in, how would translate Jon Ransom's words to another language? Which made me wonder how much is lost when a work like 'The End of Eddy' by Edouard Louis was translated into English?
I thought of Louis when I read this novel and Ransom's first 'The Whale Tattoo' because he is like Louis in emerging from a countryside and class that is ignored when not despised by the world his education and talent has brought him into. Ransom is fiercely loyal, but also honest, about his background and he recognises its strengths and limitations. I find it refreshing because it is a voice so rarely heard. It is lively, honest and true and beautifully direct. Although set 75 years ago it allows him to deal with sex, sexuality, acceptance, etc. in ways that are instantly recognisable. I often think that older 'gay' writers, like Alan Hollinghurst, have settled for writing novels set in the past because they feel out-of-touch with today's world. With Jon Ransom the 'historical' setting allows him to strip back everything to the essentials of the emotions and characters he wants to explore. He is not avoiding the present day, the issues of class and acceptance, particularly in more remote or smaller communities, are as true now as they were then (see footnote *1 below) he just avoids the annoying set dressing of pop cultural and social media references. In the same way he keeps the 'historical' details to a sparse minimum rather than indulge in the ornate set dressing a la 'Merchant-Ivory' that novels like Hollinghurst's seem to drown in.
I am not sure I have managed to convey why I loved this novel or why you should read it - and you should. It is very beautiful but very short, if you hate it you won't have lost much time. But if you do fall in love with it then you will have one of those unique reading experiences that remind you what the printed word is so essential.
*1 Although a very different novel the issues of acceptance and/or intolerance of smaller communities to those who are different that Ransom explores (amongst other themes) reminded me 'Venus as a Boy' by Luke Sutherland.
This is a novel of almost unimaginable beauty both in its story and the way it is told and it is hard to speak of the novel without understanding the time of its action and setting or, if that sounds to prescriptive, to be open to enjoying differences of place and time. If you want a 'gay' MM romance that reflects the world of today, in other words a historical novel that treats history as a costume then this not for you. But feel free to dislike it, so many GR reviewers already have.
The novel is set in the East Anglian Broads, a vast area of flatlands that were once the power house of England's wealth when it came from wool (the area is dotted with vast medieval parish churches as large as cathedrals built with some of the wealth the wool trade produced). It is flat and featureless, the winds that blow in from Siberia mean there are virtually no trees or hedgerows. The people who live there are often described as dour, like the landscape, but laconic is closer to the truth. Just because someone doesn't say much doesn't mean they don't have anything to say. Their sparse elliptical way of speaking requires attention. The period for this novel is towards the end of 1953, a year which began with the East of England ravaged by terrible floods (the 1953 North Sea floods also devastated Scotland, Belgium and the Netherlands but has been largely forgotten in England because it devastated a little known part of the country). As an example of how to write a 'historical' novel 'The Gallopers' is a masterclass anyone attempting such a novel should read. The amount of 'historical' detail and information is minimal, but all of it is essential to, and arises naturally from, the story. It fixes the story firmly in a period but leaves the story free to speak easily and directly to readers of any time and place.
I couldn't help noticing that of the 13 reviews on Goodreads (as of July 2024) a distressingly large number failed to see the novel's qualities or appreciate them and I will let the following statement stand for all their varied criticisms:
"...you can't write an entire book solely with short sentences..."
But this is not a novel of short sentences, it is novel in the unique, monosyllabic brevity of the speech of the East Anglian broads. It is as culturally specific and unique to its area as the language you will find 'Shuggie Bain' by Douglas Stuart is to Glasgow. When I read it I hear the voices and accents (though I am far from being native to the area) accurately transcribed onto the page but clearly this hasn't been recognised by many reviewers (and the criticism comes from UK and USA reviewers). It made me wonder, if the subtleties of Ransom's English are so completely lost on English readers who have no lived experience of the people and area his novel is about and set in, how would translate Jon Ransom's words to another language? Which made me wonder how much is lost when a work like 'The End of Eddy' by Edouard Louis was translated into English?
I thought of Louis when I read this novel and Ransom's first 'The Whale Tattoo' because he is like Louis in emerging from a countryside and class that is ignored when not despised by the world his education and talent has brought him into. Ransom is fiercely loyal, but also honest, about his background and he recognises its strengths and limitations. I find it refreshing because it is a voice so rarely heard. It is lively, honest and true and beautifully direct. Although set 75 years ago it allows him to deal with sex, sexuality, acceptance, etc. in ways that are instantly recognisable. I often think that older 'gay' writers, like Alan Hollinghurst, have settled for writing novels set in the past because they feel out-of-touch with today's world. With Jon Ransom the 'historical' setting allows him to strip back everything to the essentials of the emotions and characters he wants to explore. He is not avoiding the present day, the issues of class and acceptance, particularly in more remote or smaller communities, are as true now as they were then (see footnote *1 below) he just avoids the annoying set dressing of pop cultural and social media references. In the same way he keeps the 'historical' details to a sparse minimum rather than indulge in the ornate set dressing a la 'Merchant-Ivory' that novels like Hollinghurst's seem to drown in.
I am not sure I have managed to convey why I loved this novel or why you should read it - and you should. It is very beautiful but very short, if you hate it you won't have lost much time. But if you do fall in love with it then you will have one of those unique reading experiences that remind you what the printed word is so essential.
*1 Although a very different novel the issues of acceptance and/or intolerance of smaller communities to those who are different that Ransom explores (amongst other themes) reminded me 'Venus as a Boy' by Luke Sutherland.
November 16, 2023
This is a really beautiful book, wait, let me rephrase that, it's a heart-achingly beautiful book. There were clever turns and links I wasn't expecting, and a cast of characters I grew attached attached to. The book has a rather charming way of story telling, that at first was a little hard (perhaps to do with the linebreaking on the preview copy!) but once I had the pace of it added to the air of, hm, not confusion but something like it, that Eli sees the world through.
The only thing is Norfolk itself doesn't feature as much, having spent a lot of time there when I was younger, and given the prominence of the description, I rather thought it was going to be a book that was of it's time and place. This could have been any rural coastal area that had been affected by the North Sea Floods of 1953.
The only thing is Norfolk itself doesn't feature as much, having spent a lot of time there when I was younger, and given the prominence of the description, I rather thought it was going to be a book that was of it's time and place. This could have been any rural coastal area that had been affected by the North Sea Floods of 1953.
January 30, 2024
A brilliant second novel from one of my favourite new writers. Gritty and with a modern outlook, even though it is mostly set in the 1950s. Jon Ransom has a unique style and approach to story telling which as far as I am concerned, puts him up with many big name authors. (Many thanks to the publishers, Muswell Press, for my reading copy).
August 17, 2025
Inte riktigt bestämt mig vad jag tycker än. Ganska fin story men inte alls vad jag förväntat mig.. detta står på bokens baksida ”Three men bound in a blistering story that spans 30 years, from 1953 into the 1980s and the AIDS epidemic”. Förlåt men nej????? Va???? Det var ju inte ens i närheten av vad boken handlade om lol. Den är uppdelad i 3 delar och den 3dje delen gjorde att jag ändå kände att den var värd att läsa (eller snarare att jag inte ÅNGRAR att jag lagt tid på att läsa den). Aja den va väl alright:)
March 12, 2024
This is incredibly well-written, but I didn’t care all that much about the story. I’d be curious to read more by the author in the future, because the writing style is sparse and literary - something I tend to enjoy. I just struggled to care about the characters and plot as it wasn’t something I’d normally go for in terms of a book.
February 18, 2025
I loved reading this book so much that I had to pace myself. It’s beautiful, poetic, dreamlike with its own rhythm. I’ll be haunted by these characters and know I’ll be revisiting this tale.
March 4, 2025
Just as one thinks life couldn’t get much better along comes The Gallopers ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
November 22, 2025
Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: From one of the most acclaimed debut novelists of 2022 author of the Polari Prize-shortlisted The Whale Tattoo. Jon's new book The Gallopers is a visceral and mesmerising novel of deceit, desire and unspeakable loss.
Three Men, One Secret
1953. Eli is nineteen years old and lives alongside a cursed field with his strange aunt Dreama. Six months before, his mother disappeared during the North Sea flood. Unsure of his place in the world and of the man he is becoming, Eli is ready to run.
Shane Wright is a man with plenty to hide. Caught in a complicated relationship with Eli, Shane is desperate to maintain the double life that he has created for himself. Then Jimmy Smart appears. Jimmy Smart, the mysterious showman who turns the gallopers at the fair. Under his watchful gaze, Eli discovers a world he knows nothing about with rules he cannot understand.
Three men bound together in a blistering story that spans 30 years, from 1953 into the 1980s and the AIDS epidemic.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: Identity, belonging, self-knowledge...in the 1950s in rural Norfolk (an English county for those in the US)...for a queer kid, two opportunistic (in different ways) men on what we would now call "the downlow." The North Sea flood of 1953 was very severe in Eastern flatland England. Somehow Eli's mother vanishes, presumed dead, in the chaos; that's when our story begins. Social attitudes towards queers weren't liberal or positive, but Eli's a teen and no one anywhere ever has succeeded in stopping teens from having sex. Prohibit it all you like they're still doin' it. Eli sure is; so's shane, a cruel, mocking sort who feels bigger when he belittles but who needs Eli for release. Along comes older, worldly Jimmy and the sex really rocks.
Living with his Aunt Dreama, a weird woman with lots of Beliefs, Eli feels stifled and isolated. As what young queer wouldn't. Shane's coping meca=hanism is abuse; Jimmy's is pragmatism; Eli's is submission, accepting everything as how it must be, learning the odd country beliefs like in Midsommar so as not to be caught out.
There is a lot of sex in this novel. The eww-ick homophobes are ritually cautioned; but the not-queer-not-squeamish will likely feel it to be gratuitous. It belongs there, it really does have a point to make about physical intimacy, sexual intimacy, emotional intimacy existing on a spectrum, and often enough shifting between thrusts; if that sentence made you squirm a bit, this ain't a read for you.
Dialogue tags there are few; punctuation marks there are none; when we get to the 1980s bits of the story we switch to a screenplay format. Still without punctuation but told in short, punchy sentences. If you've read the nouveau roman by Robert Pinget, The Inquisitory, and did not want to hurl that book at a wall, you're safe to enter here. Beckett readers won't feel overly challenged.
I will say that I often felt as though your attention was deliberately being testingly demanded to little noticeable added effect. I can't get past four stars because of that. I won't deny that it does add layers of intrigue to the read; it also doesn't deliver on them in a conventional way. No one said it had to be conventional, of course, but it does not feel...welcoming...to the idly curious.
Setting a novel about queer desire outside the middle class, outside the sophisticated elite, is quite unusual for a 1950s setting. It's still not common to have working class gay men presented in stories. Author Ransom makes the choices work by using his demanding, no-hands-held style. You, dear reader, are outside the charmed circle, among people most of you won't ever have known, and so you need to keep your wits about you.
If you can go with the stylistic choices, and are willing to alter a few behaviors to keep yourself attentive and sharp, you're in for a very good read indeed.
The Publisher Says: From one of the most acclaimed debut novelists of 2022 author of the Polari Prize-shortlisted The Whale Tattoo. Jon's new book The Gallopers is a visceral and mesmerising novel of deceit, desire and unspeakable loss.
Three Men, One Secret
1953. Eli is nineteen years old and lives alongside a cursed field with his strange aunt Dreama. Six months before, his mother disappeared during the North Sea flood. Unsure of his place in the world and of the man he is becoming, Eli is ready to run.
Shane Wright is a man with plenty to hide. Caught in a complicated relationship with Eli, Shane is desperate to maintain the double life that he has created for himself. Then Jimmy Smart appears. Jimmy Smart, the mysterious showman who turns the gallopers at the fair. Under his watchful gaze, Eli discovers a world he knows nothing about with rules he cannot understand.
Three men bound together in a blistering story that spans 30 years, from 1953 into the 1980s and the AIDS epidemic.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: Identity, belonging, self-knowledge...in the 1950s in rural Norfolk (an English county for those in the US)...for a queer kid, two opportunistic (in different ways) men on what we would now call "the downlow." The North Sea flood of 1953 was very severe in Eastern flatland England. Somehow Eli's mother vanishes, presumed dead, in the chaos; that's when our story begins. Social attitudes towards queers weren't liberal or positive, but Eli's a teen and no one anywhere ever has succeeded in stopping teens from having sex. Prohibit it all you like they're still doin' it. Eli sure is; so's shane, a cruel, mocking sort who feels bigger when he belittles but who needs Eli for release. Along comes older, worldly Jimmy and the sex really rocks.
Living with his Aunt Dreama, a weird woman with lots of Beliefs, Eli feels stifled and isolated. As what young queer wouldn't. Shane's coping meca=hanism is abuse; Jimmy's is pragmatism; Eli's is submission, accepting everything as how it must be, learning the odd country beliefs like in Midsommar so as not to be caught out.
There is a lot of sex in this novel. The eww-ick homophobes are ritually cautioned; but the not-queer-not-squeamish will likely feel it to be gratuitous. It belongs there, it really does have a point to make about physical intimacy, sexual intimacy, emotional intimacy existing on a spectrum, and often enough shifting between thrusts; if that sentence made you squirm a bit, this ain't a read for you.
Dialogue tags there are few; punctuation marks there are none; when we get to the 1980s bits of the story we switch to a screenplay format. Still without punctuation but told in short, punchy sentences. If you've read the nouveau roman by Robert Pinget, The Inquisitory, and did not want to hurl that book at a wall, you're safe to enter here. Beckett readers won't feel overly challenged.
I will say that I often felt as though your attention was deliberately being testingly demanded to little noticeable added effect. I can't get past four stars because of that. I won't deny that it does add layers of intrigue to the read; it also doesn't deliver on them in a conventional way. No one said it had to be conventional, of course, but it does not feel...welcoming...to the idly curious.
Setting a novel about queer desire outside the middle class, outside the sophisticated elite, is quite unusual for a 1950s setting. It's still not common to have working class gay men presented in stories. Author Ransom makes the choices work by using his demanding, no-hands-held style. You, dear reader, are outside the charmed circle, among people most of you won't ever have known, and so you need to keep your wits about you.
If you can go with the stylistic choices, and are willing to alter a few behaviors to keep yourself attentive and sharp, you're in for a very good read indeed.
December 16, 2023
I very much enjoyed this novel, which I suppose would be best placed within the literary novel category This is the authors second novel the first the whale tattoo won the Polari first book prize in 2023
I’d had heard the great storm of 1952,when there I was a bad winter storm at the same time as high spring tide, which caused catastrophic flooding throughout a large part of the east of England around the wash.This book is set immediately after that, when people are still finding remnants of people’s
belongings strewn across the fields . I loved the picture drawn at one stage of one of the characters sitting down to a meal, using a table full of mismatched crockery that she had found washed up during the storm .
The story is mostly focused at a single point in a young gay man’s life during a particular hot summer, following the famous flood. He meets and falls in love with a charismatic young man who is from a travelling, circus family . The Gallopers of the books title refers to the centrepoint of many are travelling fair both, and now the big horses roundabout . The roundabout is populated by typical garish painted horses with a single horse painted grey The author uses this as a metaphor for the main characters difference being an overtly camp homosexual man.
The author has quite distinctive writing style which was pleasure to read, some sections were written as dialogue only and the more descriptive paragraphs in a more straightforward manner.
There is a section around the middle of the novel which is written in the form of a play whilst I found this scene highly visual ,I loved the picture of a field full of holes as the disappeared ww2 bomb is searched for .There is also a parallel that could be drawn here of the number of graves being dug in this time period for victims of the HIV epidemic.I did enjoy this chapter but struggled a bit to put it into the context of the story as a whole ,the characters were the same as the rest of the novel but since the scene was supposed to be set in 1988 they were the wrong age .It left me feeling a bit confused ,ultimately I suspect the novel would have been entirely satisfactory without it
The novel is very firmly rooted in East Anglia, having personally driven around here recently during a period of extremely heavy rain. It was easy to imagine the land underwater with small items of slightly higher Land, appearing cut off and surrounded by water
There’s quite a lot of gay sex scenes throughout the novel the scenes are graphic at times but in no way voyeuristic I felt that they were vital to developing the tone of the story and to understanding the characters and their motivation.
I felt that the author’s character development was detailed . In particular, the main character, a young gay man who grew along with the story. he felt like a real three-dimensional person, and his struggles, with his sexuality and together with the grief, following the loss of his mother in the flood felt very real.
There was an interesting, minor plot twist towards the end of the novel which I had not predicted .
I would recommend this novel to those who enjoy a character-based immersive read. If you enjoyed Shuggie Bain by Douglas, Stuart or Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver then you might also enjoy this novel
I read an early copy of the book which I was kindly sent by the book’s, publicist Fiona Brownlee. The book is published in the UK on the 24th of January 2024 by Muswell Press.
This review will appear on my book blog,bionicsarahsbooks@wordpress.com, Goodreads and Amazon, UK, at the time of publication
I’d had heard the great storm of 1952,when there I was a bad winter storm at the same time as high spring tide, which caused catastrophic flooding throughout a large part of the east of England around the wash.This book is set immediately after that, when people are still finding remnants of people’s
belongings strewn across the fields . I loved the picture drawn at one stage of one of the characters sitting down to a meal, using a table full of mismatched crockery that she had found washed up during the storm .
The story is mostly focused at a single point in a young gay man’s life during a particular hot summer, following the famous flood. He meets and falls in love with a charismatic young man who is from a travelling, circus family . The Gallopers of the books title refers to the centrepoint of many are travelling fair both, and now the big horses roundabout . The roundabout is populated by typical garish painted horses with a single horse painted grey The author uses this as a metaphor for the main characters difference being an overtly camp homosexual man.
The author has quite distinctive writing style which was pleasure to read, some sections were written as dialogue only and the more descriptive paragraphs in a more straightforward manner.
There is a section around the middle of the novel which is written in the form of a play whilst I found this scene highly visual ,I loved the picture of a field full of holes as the disappeared ww2 bomb is searched for .There is also a parallel that could be drawn here of the number of graves being dug in this time period for victims of the HIV epidemic.I did enjoy this chapter but struggled a bit to put it into the context of the story as a whole ,the characters were the same as the rest of the novel but since the scene was supposed to be set in 1988 they were the wrong age .It left me feeling a bit confused ,ultimately I suspect the novel would have been entirely satisfactory without it
The novel is very firmly rooted in East Anglia, having personally driven around here recently during a period of extremely heavy rain. It was easy to imagine the land underwater with small items of slightly higher Land, appearing cut off and surrounded by water
There’s quite a lot of gay sex scenes throughout the novel the scenes are graphic at times but in no way voyeuristic I felt that they were vital to developing the tone of the story and to understanding the characters and their motivation.
I felt that the author’s character development was detailed . In particular, the main character, a young gay man who grew along with the story. he felt like a real three-dimensional person, and his struggles, with his sexuality and together with the grief, following the loss of his mother in the flood felt very real.
There was an interesting, minor plot twist towards the end of the novel which I had not predicted .
I would recommend this novel to those who enjoy a character-based immersive read. If you enjoyed Shuggie Bain by Douglas, Stuart or Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver then you might also enjoy this novel
I read an early copy of the book which I was kindly sent by the book’s, publicist Fiona Brownlee. The book is published in the UK on the 24th of January 2024 by Muswell Press.
This review will appear on my book blog,bionicsarahsbooks@wordpress.com, Goodreads and Amazon, UK, at the time of publication
January 30, 2025
It took me a minute to realize that the “Polari” in “Polari Prize” (which this book won, and which is not to be confused with Canada’s Polaris Prize, which exists to funnel money to the indie rock band Broken Social Scene) is the same as the “Palare” in the 1990 Morrissey song “Piccadilly Palare,” but it makes sense. Being gay in England seems like its own highly specific thing which I wouldn’t get, being from California, and being gay in Norfolk a further niche. You get a good impression of it from Jon Ransom’s The Gallopers.
It’s a bit like looking at a painting by Monet, where all the little dots that don’t make sense up close resolve into a vivid sense of being-there-ness at a distance, except it’s big chunks of dense prose interspersed with sections of dialogue (it’s also much bleaker than Monet, trading idyllic seasides and lily-strewn ponds for ugly, dirt-banked rivers and lethal floodwaters). It’s definitely doing something stylistically.
There’s a barn on the protagonist’s property which is notable for its lack of article: everyone is always “going into black barn” or “looking at black barn” and every skipped an or the piles up in this big heap of unease. Lots of little tricks like that make the book atmospheric in a way you can’t quite pin down until the narrative really gets going in the last quarter or so: the whole thing is this slow build of poverty and dirt and alienation and bottoming with no lube, and it takes a long time before it feels like story happens.
The book is grim and unromantic. It’s not a light read–it fills out its Important Gay Lit bingo card with both 1950s homophobia and AIDS–and I had too few serotonin molecules banging around in my brain to enjoy it much. That said, a more well-adjusted person with better taste than me would probably love it. It would make a fantastic movie, where the narrative’s bleakness could be visually offset with beautiful young actors and long shots of the Norfolk countryside at sunset.
Four stars, I guess?
Note: I was given a free advance copy of the book. The publisher had no input in this review.
It’s a bit like looking at a painting by Monet, where all the little dots that don’t make sense up close resolve into a vivid sense of being-there-ness at a distance, except it’s big chunks of dense prose interspersed with sections of dialogue (it’s also much bleaker than Monet, trading idyllic seasides and lily-strewn ponds for ugly, dirt-banked rivers and lethal floodwaters). It’s definitely doing something stylistically.
There’s a barn on the protagonist’s property which is notable for its lack of article: everyone is always “going into black barn” or “looking at black barn” and every skipped an or the piles up in this big heap of unease. Lots of little tricks like that make the book atmospheric in a way you can’t quite pin down until the narrative really gets going in the last quarter or so: the whole thing is this slow build of poverty and dirt and alienation and bottoming with no lube, and it takes a long time before it feels like story happens.
The book is grim and unromantic. It’s not a light read–it fills out its Important Gay Lit bingo card with both 1950s homophobia and AIDS–and I had too few serotonin molecules banging around in my brain to enjoy it much. That said, a more well-adjusted person with better taste than me would probably love it. It would make a fantastic movie, where the narrative’s bleakness could be visually offset with beautiful young actors and long shots of the Norfolk countryside at sunset.
Four stars, I guess?
Note: I was given a free advance copy of the book. The publisher had no input in this review.
February 4, 2024
This was one of my most anticipated books of the year, and except for one thing, this did not disappoint. The prose is simply stunning. Razor sharp and stripped back, dream-like yet disjointed, Jon's language somehow manages to be minimalist and lyrical at the same time. I don't know how he packs so much emotion into so few words. That's a real skill right there, because some sections are so beautiful that they read almost like a prose poem, and yet even Chuck Palahniuk would be proud of the stripped back language. This time, unlike his debut, we move inland, still in his rural Norfolk, but away from the coast this time. And yet water still haunts the story, just as it haunts the land. The characters are complex, the sex is hot, and I absolutely fell in love with our narrator, Eli. I also loved the small town superstition and folkloric elements that run through the narrative, which ring true of small town rural communities the world over. The atmosphere reminded me of something from an Andrew Michael Hurley book, suffocating, dreamy, and menacing. The only thing I didn't understand was the five act play in the middle. I don't really know why it was there. Personally, I would have taken that out and published it as a novella, or maybe rewritten the play as prose and used it as a coda, or an epilogue. This would have been an easy 5 star book if not for that middle section, but even so, it's still a stunning piece of work, worth it just to savour the delicious prose alone. Not quite the dizzying heights of his debut, but still a very strong 4 stars.
July 8, 2025
Centred on absences as much as presences
—
Three men orbit each other, never daring to speak their desires but acting on them in secret. In a staccato prose that takes you directly into the heart and mind of Eli, his stream of consciousness takes you over and brings to life the languid landscape of the Norfolk Fens in the 1950s, a little like the Appalachians, not so far in distance but culturally in another world. Eli’s a local, living with his Aunt Dreama on a smallholding with a cursed field; he works alongside Shane, sometimes letting him have his way with him; and he spies on Jimmy Smart, one of the show people, who looks after the gallopers. Then the book takes an abrupt right turn and a leap in time in the middle, becoming a play written by Eli in the 1980s, the parts redistributed, the AIDS crisis its new landscape, the relationships redrawn, the ending rewritten; before returning to Eli and Shane and Jimmy in the Fifties.
There is something undefinable about this charismatic book, where landscape reflects the characters, and vice versa; where speech is presented as either orphan lines or as playscript; where everything is at a remove, people’s thoughts and words and motivations, even Eli’s, even though we’re in his very head. It’s as much about the absences as the presences: the intervening decades, what happens between other characters when Eli isn’t observing them, the missing, the lost, the dead. The reader—at least this reader—is left to join up the dots, if at all possible.
—
Three men orbit each other, never daring to speak their desires but acting on them in secret. In a staccato prose that takes you directly into the heart and mind of Eli, his stream of consciousness takes you over and brings to life the languid landscape of the Norfolk Fens in the 1950s, a little like the Appalachians, not so far in distance but culturally in another world. Eli’s a local, living with his Aunt Dreama on a smallholding with a cursed field; he works alongside Shane, sometimes letting him have his way with him; and he spies on Jimmy Smart, one of the show people, who looks after the gallopers. Then the book takes an abrupt right turn and a leap in time in the middle, becoming a play written by Eli in the 1980s, the parts redistributed, the AIDS crisis its new landscape, the relationships redrawn, the ending rewritten; before returning to Eli and Shane and Jimmy in the Fifties.
There is something undefinable about this charismatic book, where landscape reflects the characters, and vice versa; where speech is presented as either orphan lines or as playscript; where everything is at a remove, people’s thoughts and words and motivations, even Eli’s, even though we’re in his very head. It’s as much about the absences as the presences: the intervening decades, what happens between other characters when Eli isn’t observing them, the missing, the lost, the dead. The reader—at least this reader—is left to join up the dots, if at all possible.
March 4, 2025
I did not really enjoy this book but read it as part of book group ….
The story itself is slightly odd, about a woman called Eliza who is lost in a flood. Her son Eli, moves onto the family small holding with his aunt Dreama - their field, home and black barn being the only things in the area that remained untouched by the flood.
Eli is the main protagonist in the story and the book revolves around him, his first ‘lover’ Shane Wright (who takes advantage of him) and then his infatuation with Jimmy Smart a Showman who winds up the hand driven Carousel.
Dreama is odd, there are two lions inserted into the tale, stones keep being thrown through windows by townsfolk, and there is a lot of digging holes in ‘the field’ to try and unearth a bomb that fell when Eli was seven. Eli is raped as a youngster, and seems bullied for sex throughout most of his youth. Presumably these all have meaning or are metaphors for something, but what just passed me by, and I found the whole book a bit unsavoury!
The Gallopers of the title are the horses on a Carousel in a fairground although these do not come to the fore until quite near the end. One interesting point being there is normally one ‘misfit’ horse on a Carousel that is unadorned which of course Eli and Jimmy rode together.
Not my sort of story at all, although I do recognise the ability of the author as a wordsmith, particularly as he writes a mini play - based on the characters lives 30 years later - in the middle of the book.
The story itself is slightly odd, about a woman called Eliza who is lost in a flood. Her son Eli, moves onto the family small holding with his aunt Dreama - their field, home and black barn being the only things in the area that remained untouched by the flood.
Eli is the main protagonist in the story and the book revolves around him, his first ‘lover’ Shane Wright (who takes advantage of him) and then his infatuation with Jimmy Smart a Showman who winds up the hand driven Carousel.
Dreama is odd, there are two lions inserted into the tale, stones keep being thrown through windows by townsfolk, and there is a lot of digging holes in ‘the field’ to try and unearth a bomb that fell when Eli was seven. Eli is raped as a youngster, and seems bullied for sex throughout most of his youth. Presumably these all have meaning or are metaphors for something, but what just passed me by, and I found the whole book a bit unsavoury!
The Gallopers of the title are the horses on a Carousel in a fairground although these do not come to the fore until quite near the end. One interesting point being there is normally one ‘misfit’ horse on a Carousel that is unadorned which of course Eli and Jimmy rode together.
Not my sort of story at all, although I do recognise the ability of the author as a wordsmith, particularly as he writes a mini play - based on the characters lives 30 years later - in the middle of the book.
June 29, 2025
1953, somewhere in England. Eli is 19 and has a dead-end job in a printing factory. Since The Flood took his mother some twelve months ago he now lives with his aunt Dreama. According to Dreama their one field is cursed and Dreama spends many hours communing with the ground. Eli has sex with Shane, one of his co-workers at the printers who has unresolved demons. Sex is necessary: enough for Eli?
Blowing into Eli’s life comes The Showman, Jimmy Smart, who takes up residence in the back barn. Eli is transfixed by everything about Jimmy Smart and an uneasy relationship develops between the two.
Ransom has gambled with the form of his novel. The mid-section, dated 1988, is entitled “The Gallopers: a play by Eli Stone”, and is written on the page as a play would. The characters in the play are firmly based on those from the first part of the novel. It’s a gamble that didn’t pay off for me. In rehashing what we’ve just read, the momentum of the story fatally loses urgency.
After this the narrative returns to 1954, and the denouement is accomplished with deft and economy.
Ransom writes achingly well about longing and desire, indeed at times erotic. He also beautifully captures the physical aspects of place and time.
If the middle part of this short but intense novel had taken a different tack… four stars.
Blowing into Eli’s life comes The Showman, Jimmy Smart, who takes up residence in the back barn. Eli is transfixed by everything about Jimmy Smart and an uneasy relationship develops between the two.
Ransom has gambled with the form of his novel. The mid-section, dated 1988, is entitled “The Gallopers: a play by Eli Stone”, and is written on the page as a play would. The characters in the play are firmly based on those from the first part of the novel. It’s a gamble that didn’t pay off for me. In rehashing what we’ve just read, the momentum of the story fatally loses urgency.
After this the narrative returns to 1954, and the denouement is accomplished with deft and economy.
Ransom writes achingly well about longing and desire, indeed at times erotic. He also beautifully captures the physical aspects of place and time.
If the middle part of this short but intense novel had taken a different tack… four stars.
December 8, 2023
Oh how I wanted to like this book so much but unfortunately I just can’t give it any praise. I really struggled to read this and in the end I had to admit defeat and give up reading at around the halfway mark. The writers style is not like any I’ve read before and comes across as more of a stream of consciousness than a story teller. This book needs some major editing before it hits shelves.
There is no real structure to the chapters and it floats from one event to the other never really landing on an event and describing it in any great detail leading to me not really caring about the characters or their stories. You’re never able to really build a picture of them or any real connection to them or their stories which for me is a must for a good book.
Lets address the spicy sections of this book….meh….like the rest of this book they lack any realness or heat, they aren’t even erotic which I would say is the very basic requirement of a spicy scene in a book. They’re just very matter of fact and again like the rest of this book they lack any emotion or creativity. I unfortunately couldn’t recommend this book to anyone and would have to rate it a 1*.
I would say more but it would very much be flogging the dead horse that this book is.
There is no real structure to the chapters and it floats from one event to the other never really landing on an event and describing it in any great detail leading to me not really caring about the characters or their stories. You’re never able to really build a picture of them or any real connection to them or their stories which for me is a must for a good book.
Lets address the spicy sections of this book….meh….like the rest of this book they lack any realness or heat, they aren’t even erotic which I would say is the very basic requirement of a spicy scene in a book. They’re just very matter of fact and again like the rest of this book they lack any emotion or creativity. I unfortunately couldn’t recommend this book to anyone and would have to rate it a 1*.
I would say more but it would very much be flogging the dead horse that this book is.
December 25, 2023
*Netgalley provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*
1/5
I have DNF'd better books than this. The premise for this book is really interesting, but the execution is so poorly done.
First of all, PUNCTUATION! where is it? I spent far too much time trying to figure out who was talking, where speech began or ended. Some basic punctuation beyond full stops and commas would have fixed many of the problems with this book.
Next: you can't write an entire book solely with short sentences. It often read like a list of statements rather than a story. With the repetitive use of some phrases and jumping from scene to scene seemingly randomly the whole story seemed chaotic and much of the time impossible to follow.
And then the random 'play' halfway through which jumped just over 30 years that made no sense and made no contribution to the actual plot of the book, then abruptly switches back was just bizarre.
The whole story read with no emotion, I imagined it being read in a monotone voice with no inflection at all. At times I wondered whether this book was written by AI it was that baffling.
Maybe I just didn't like the writing style and other people would love this, but if the book hadn't been so short I would have left this one unfinished.
1/5
I have DNF'd better books than this. The premise for this book is really interesting, but the execution is so poorly done.
First of all, PUNCTUATION! where is it? I spent far too much time trying to figure out who was talking, where speech began or ended. Some basic punctuation beyond full stops and commas would have fixed many of the problems with this book.
Next: you can't write an entire book solely with short sentences. It often read like a list of statements rather than a story. With the repetitive use of some phrases and jumping from scene to scene seemingly randomly the whole story seemed chaotic and much of the time impossible to follow.
And then the random 'play' halfway through which jumped just over 30 years that made no sense and made no contribution to the actual plot of the book, then abruptly switches back was just bizarre.
The whole story read with no emotion, I imagined it being read in a monotone voice with no inflection at all. At times I wondered whether this book was written by AI it was that baffling.
Maybe I just didn't like the writing style and other people would love this, but if the book hadn't been so short I would have left this one unfinished.
December 25, 2023
Is it OK to be intrigued by a book, to like it, and yet to sense you haven't scraped more than the top couple of layers?
In sometimes dream-like, deliberately disjointed language, a tale is told of after a flood in early 1950s east England somewhere. This almost biblical event has affected both the area and Eli greatly, and he's still trying to pick up the pieces of his life. A young fem man, Eli is an outsider at a time when being 'a sissy' (language I found disturbing, however accurate) is guaranteed to cause problems.
After a while, Jimmy Smart comes into his life. Jimmy's a circus worker and so another outsider. His and his brothers run a ride (the gallopers of the title). Through his encounters with Jimmy, Eli learns more about himself, his sexuality, and what happened to his mother who was thought to have drowned during the flood.
This isn't an easy read. Not so much for content, but because the writing requires concentration. Sentence fragments abound. Speech isn't clearly delineated, isn't often assigned to particular speakers, and can sometimes feel stylised. Despite this, it is worth persisting, and I suspect, it's a book that needs to be read more than once.
With thanks to the publisher and Net Galley for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.
In sometimes dream-like, deliberately disjointed language, a tale is told of after a flood in early 1950s east England somewhere. This almost biblical event has affected both the area and Eli greatly, and he's still trying to pick up the pieces of his life. A young fem man, Eli is an outsider at a time when being 'a sissy' (language I found disturbing, however accurate) is guaranteed to cause problems.
After a while, Jimmy Smart comes into his life. Jimmy's a circus worker and so another outsider. His and his brothers run a ride (the gallopers of the title). Through his encounters with Jimmy, Eli learns more about himself, his sexuality, and what happened to his mother who was thought to have drowned during the flood.
This isn't an easy read. Not so much for content, but because the writing requires concentration. Sentence fragments abound. Speech isn't clearly delineated, isn't often assigned to particular speakers, and can sometimes feel stylised. Despite this, it is worth persisting, and I suspect, it's a book that needs to be read more than once.
With thanks to the publisher and Net Galley for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.
January 17, 2025
This book is not what I expected it to be. It's described as Historical Fiction about the countryside life of three men during the AIDs epidemic, but I'd say it's pure literary fiction with some background's historical setting. It is quite experimental, especially with the screenplay in the middle of the book. I can't say I enjoyed the writing style, but in my opinion, it's more of a personal preference thing. The writing itself is not bad at all, even sometimes beautiful. However, I hated that this book had so many short sentences. I needed to really concentrate on what was going on in the book due to quite monotone narration. And I failed to become attached to the characters, so I didn't really care about them and their pain.
However, the atmosphere of this book is fabulous. It's cold, emotional, lonely, windy and quiet. It reminded me a little bit of the good old Brokeback Mountain but set in the English countryside with younger characters. I am sure some people will find it fascinating and could understand the struggles of the main character better than me.
*Thank you to Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review*
However, the atmosphere of this book is fabulous. It's cold, emotional, lonely, windy and quiet. It reminded me a little bit of the good old Brokeback Mountain but set in the English countryside with younger characters. I am sure some people will find it fascinating and could understand the struggles of the main character better than me.
*Thank you to Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review*
May 26, 2025
A haunting, bleak meditation on working-class gay life, set in 1953 only six months after the North Sea Flood. Eli lives with his odd aunt Dreama after his mother disappeared without trace in the flood; the field next to their home is cursed and their 'black barn' recently inhabited by a showman Jimmy (currently estranged from his family.) This was a truly atmospheric and sad book which had me hypnotised by its lyrical prose. What I tend to love about shorter books is that every word really does count - I could ponder a sentence and every time I did, I could feel its significance in value and often make connections across the text as I was going. I bet this would be stunning on a re-read. I can't believe how connected I felt to Eli in just 193 pages - I genuinely cared so much for this young man and felt deeply saddened when the book came to a close. 5 stars, without a shadow of a doubt.
January 20, 2025
1.25/5
This felt like such a drag and just beyond my comprehension. We read about Eli in the 1950s and his relationships with 2 local men (who I kept getting confused between because it felt like there was no differentiation between their personalities until the third act), as well as the field near his and his aunt's home (we read *a lot* about this field). Then, we're suddenly thrust in to what I presume to be is an alternate universe play set in the late 80s where Eli's mother is dying of AIDS, and then return back to the original prose as though that didn't happen.
I just found this whole book deeply confusing and dissatisfying. I wanted to enjoy this - and it did pick up a bit by the end, but if this wasn't an ARC then I absolutely would have DNF'd this. Not for me!
ARC from NetGalley
This felt like such a drag and just beyond my comprehension. We read about Eli in the 1950s and his relationships with 2 local men (who I kept getting confused between because it felt like there was no differentiation between their personalities until the third act), as well as the field near his and his aunt's home (we read *a lot* about this field). Then, we're suddenly thrust in to what I presume to be is an alternate universe play set in the late 80s where Eli's mother is dying of AIDS, and then return back to the original prose as though that didn't happen.
I just found this whole book deeply confusing and dissatisfying. I wanted to enjoy this - and it did pick up a bit by the end, but if this wasn't an ARC then I absolutely would have DNF'd this. Not for me!
ARC from NetGalley
February 14, 2025
I found this quite a difficult book to really get to grips with. It felt like there was a lot of subtext and things that were being hinted at, but just a little too far out of my reach.
The writing style itself was interesting - long and rambling descriptions, followed by solid, punctuation-less dialogue. Repeat ad infinitum. And then in the middle of the book is an interlude where we read a play apparently written by the protagonist, 30 years later.
It was hard to sort of fit all of the jigsaw pieces together of what the author was actually trying to achieve.
On its face it was a fairly straight forward tale about a gay man living in an oppressive time, who has a short fling with another man. But it felt like the author was trying to convey more than that (especially with the flash-forward play), but for me I don't think it fully landed.
The writing style itself was interesting - long and rambling descriptions, followed by solid, punctuation-less dialogue. Repeat ad infinitum. And then in the middle of the book is an interlude where we read a play apparently written by the protagonist, 30 years later.
It was hard to sort of fit all of the jigsaw pieces together of what the author was actually trying to achieve.
On its face it was a fairly straight forward tale about a gay man living in an oppressive time, who has a short fling with another man. But it felt like the author was trying to convey more than that (especially with the flash-forward play), but for me I don't think it fully landed.
February 18, 2025
Eli is 19 and gay. It's the Nineteen-Fifties in rural East Anglia and it's not a good or legal time to be gay and have everyone know your business. On top of this Eli and his aunt Dreama live an otherworldly life full of divination, prophecy and a belief in curses. A great flood has had catastrophic consequences for everyone and we are left in a strange, washed up world in which nothing is quite as it seems. I found this a difficult read in many respects. There are time slips, perspective shifts and a world of themes and ideas which weave through this text in a disorienting way. It feels like it would repay closer study but at a first read I finished it more confused than I started it.
October 14, 2024
Some lovely writing here, but the inclusion of the second part, written as though it's a script, is simply bizarre, with it's inclusion of an Eliza character who may be a stand-in for Eli, and who (I'm only guessing here) is perhaps meant to be a transsexual version of Eli 20 years later? Or it may have been included simply in order to reference AIDS and make it somehow more contemporary? I really don't know.
Read
April 9, 2025A teenage, self-described “sissy” is awash in a world of prejudice and small-town economic despair in Jon Ransom’s second novel, which takes inspiration from the North Sea Flood of 1953. With weathered, working-class characters and an uncomplicated yet evocative style, the book is reminiscent of the work of John Steinbeck and Annie Proulx.
Read the rest of my review at Out in Print.
Read the rest of my review at Out in Print.
March 14, 2025
The ending was strong, but the middle part really threw a wrench into this which is why I haven't scored it higher. The middle section was written as a play, but it felt misplaced and out of context. If parts 1 and 3 had been strung together, I think it would have hit a lot better.
Picked up at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.
Picked up at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.
May 18, 2025
Confusing
Not keen on the style of writing. I found it too difficult to get into the book. And the 'play' in the middle....I don't know why it's there. I started to read it but gave up reading that part. I was keen to finish the book so battled on through. I'd have to think twice about buying any more of this author's books.
Not keen on the style of writing. I found it too difficult to get into the book. And the 'play' in the middle....I don't know why it's there. I started to read it but gave up reading that part. I was keen to finish the book so battled on through. I'd have to think twice about buying any more of this author's books.
December 22, 2024
Another dark both in subject matter and also geographically book from Jon Ransom, he writes interesting stories of young men discovering their sexuality in unexpected ways, in climates of poverty, working class community and prejudice. Neither hopeful nor bleak, rather endlessly compelling.
March 5, 2025
Reading this, it makes me wonder if he's building his own little queer literary universe? There are parallels with his first book, but more striking is the fact a minor character in it, is a central character in this one - I guess we'll see when he writes some more...
February 20, 2024
An amazing and heartbreaking novel. I couldn’t put it down.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews