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Villager
There’s so much to know. It will never end, I suspect, even when it does. So much in all these lives, so many stories, even in this small place.
Villages are full of tales: some are forgotten while others become a part of local folklore. But the fortunes of one West Country village are watched over and irreversibly etched into its history as an omniscient, somewhat crabby, presence keeps track of village life.
In the late sixties a Californian musician blows through Underhill where he writes a set of haunting folk songs that will earn him a group of obsessive fans and a cult following. Two decades later, a couple of teenagers disturb a body on the local golf course. In 2019, a pair of lodgers discover a one-eyed rag doll hidden in the walls of their crumbling and neglected home. Connections are forged and broken across generations, but only the landscape itself can link them together. A landscape threatened by property development and superfast train corridors and speckled by the pylons whose feet have been buried across the moor.
Villages are full of tales: some are forgotten while others become a part of local folklore. But the fortunes of one West Country village are watched over and irreversibly etched into its history as an omniscient, somewhat crabby, presence keeps track of village life.
In the late sixties a Californian musician blows through Underhill where he writes a set of haunting folk songs that will earn him a group of obsessive fans and a cult following. Two decades later, a couple of teenagers disturb a body on the local golf course. In 2019, a pair of lodgers discover a one-eyed rag doll hidden in the walls of their crumbling and neglected home. Connections are forged and broken across generations, but only the landscape itself can link them together. A landscape threatened by property development and superfast train corridors and speckled by the pylons whose feet have been buried across the moor.
336 pages, Hardcover
Published April 28, 2022
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1141 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 127 reviews
May 21, 2023
“This is what all the best art is: our repainting of the world, in our own individual language. And it’s when that language is least compromised and most individual that the art is less likely to drown, more set to surf successfully across time. But of course it’s also true – and here is the difficulty, and the cruelty – that some of the painting where the language is most truly and beautifully of ourselves, least swayed by a mission to please and be quickly understood, is the kind that can have a very difficult birth, feel like an unwanted, unloved child for a while. But then when, and if, it gets past that difficult stage, the dream life it lives – whether it is a painting, a record, a book, or some other form of creative endeavour – in the minds of those who adore it is astonishingly powerful, arguably no less real and vivid – maybe even more real and vivid – than the thing from the less abstract world that inspired it.”
This is the first fiction I have read by Tom Cox. I hadn’t registered that this was the same Tom Cox who wrote a book on cats I read some years ago. Cox seems to have written about numerous topics: he has a podcast and a blog and uses Twitter a good deal (so I am told), he used to review music for The Guardian and tried briefly to be a professional golfer (failing spectacularly, but getting a book out of it called Bring me the Head of Sergio Garcia).
This novel is set in a fictional village (Underhill) on Dartmoor, which is situated under a hill. It is a series of snapshots in time, mainly in the twentieth and twenty-first century, but ranging from prehistory to 2099. Some of the sections are almost stand alone. There are threads running through. The hill itself is one of the voices adding a folklore/gothic element. Another strand is a fictional American who arrives in the village in 1968 and records an album which becomes a sort of cult classic (a la Nick Drake). As one reviewer has noted it’s a sort of cross Mike Leigh, Oliver Postgate and Public Enemy.
Cox has a good turn of phrase and some eccentric ideas. There is a discussion about pylons with a Facebook group called “Pylons I have known”; needless to say the spirit of Underhill hates pylons. There is also a section on apples and apple varieties with the more obscure varieties referred to as:
“Apples of the insurrectionary underground … which would upset the apples in your local supermarket with their foul mouths …”
There is a mix of newcomers and locals and a more general theme of “don’t mess with nature. Tragedy and comedy mix rather well and characters do keep appearing at different times in their lives. It’s a rather eclectic mix and some of the pieces work better than others. Those that do work tend to work well. On the whole it captures the essence of village life rather well and makes some good points about our relationship with the landscape. The comedic moments are good, including the one where a pre Stone Age member of the Beaker tribe appears to join a modern WhatsApp group. I found this mostly interesting, inventive and thoughtful making some pertinent comments as it progresses like the one about a new train line which:
“smashes through ancient woodland, fucks over a couple of Elizabethan farmhouses, rapes and pillages the homesteads of hares, otters, stoats and badgers”.
“There’s so much to know. It will never end, I suspect, even when it does. So much in all these lives, so many stories, even in this small place.”
This is the first fiction I have read by Tom Cox. I hadn’t registered that this was the same Tom Cox who wrote a book on cats I read some years ago. Cox seems to have written about numerous topics: he has a podcast and a blog and uses Twitter a good deal (so I am told), he used to review music for The Guardian and tried briefly to be a professional golfer (failing spectacularly, but getting a book out of it called Bring me the Head of Sergio Garcia).
This novel is set in a fictional village (Underhill) on Dartmoor, which is situated under a hill. It is a series of snapshots in time, mainly in the twentieth and twenty-first century, but ranging from prehistory to 2099. Some of the sections are almost stand alone. There are threads running through. The hill itself is one of the voices adding a folklore/gothic element. Another strand is a fictional American who arrives in the village in 1968 and records an album which becomes a sort of cult classic (a la Nick Drake). As one reviewer has noted it’s a sort of cross Mike Leigh, Oliver Postgate and Public Enemy.
Cox has a good turn of phrase and some eccentric ideas. There is a discussion about pylons with a Facebook group called “Pylons I have known”; needless to say the spirit of Underhill hates pylons. There is also a section on apples and apple varieties with the more obscure varieties referred to as:
“Apples of the insurrectionary underground … which would upset the apples in your local supermarket with their foul mouths …”
There is a mix of newcomers and locals and a more general theme of “don’t mess with nature. Tragedy and comedy mix rather well and characters do keep appearing at different times in their lives. It’s a rather eclectic mix and some of the pieces work better than others. Those that do work tend to work well. On the whole it captures the essence of village life rather well and makes some good points about our relationship with the landscape. The comedic moments are good, including the one where a pre Stone Age member of the Beaker tribe appears to join a modern WhatsApp group. I found this mostly interesting, inventive and thoughtful making some pertinent comments as it progresses like the one about a new train line which:
“smashes through ancient woodland, fucks over a couple of Elizabethan farmhouses, rapes and pillages the homesteads of hares, otters, stoats and badgers”.
“There’s so much to know. It will never end, I suspect, even when it does. So much in all these lives, so many stories, even in this small place.”
April 7, 2022
I’m deeply suspicious of 5 star ratings but in a very narcissistic way it feels like maybe this book was written just for me and my niche obsessions with 60s music, folklore and the story of specific locations, or homes. The accuracy of this quote cuts maybe a bit close to the bone for me though:
“Would I have listened to this record? Or would I have been suspicious of it for being too popular with cool people, and possibly denied myself the chance to enjoy it until a few years later, when it had become less cool? Ergo: been the same kind of stubborn cultural edgeperson I am now.”
Villager gives the reader a kaleidoscopic trip through different lives (including that of the moor itself) in the fictional moorland village Underhill. As you travel back and forward in time people and events are woven through the chapters in tantalizing snippets that gradually form the story of cult folk musician RJ McKendree, his life, influences and the legacy of his album “Wallflower”.
It’s an ambitious feat to build a realistic world this vividly but I think Underhill and it’s inhabitants do exist and maybe if I find the right door in the right garden wall I can slip through and actually visit.
The story is told with reverence for the natural world, philosophy and wit. So perhaps you are a stubborn cultural edgeperson and you deny yourself a trip through Underhill? That’s your right, but you would be missing a very unique and special book. And maybe that makes me like it more (but at least buy a copy and support the author because we need to keep this man fed and writing).
“Would I have listened to this record? Or would I have been suspicious of it for being too popular with cool people, and possibly denied myself the chance to enjoy it until a few years later, when it had become less cool? Ergo: been the same kind of stubborn cultural edgeperson I am now.”
Villager gives the reader a kaleidoscopic trip through different lives (including that of the moor itself) in the fictional moorland village Underhill. As you travel back and forward in time people and events are woven through the chapters in tantalizing snippets that gradually form the story of cult folk musician RJ McKendree, his life, influences and the legacy of his album “Wallflower”.
It’s an ambitious feat to build a realistic world this vividly but I think Underhill and it’s inhabitants do exist and maybe if I find the right door in the right garden wall I can slip through and actually visit.
The story is told with reverence for the natural world, philosophy and wit. So perhaps you are a stubborn cultural edgeperson and you deny yourself a trip through Underhill? That’s your right, but you would be missing a very unique and special book. And maybe that makes me like it more (but at least buy a copy and support the author because we need to keep this man fed and writing).
June 7, 2022
This is the first book I’ve read by Tom Cox so, unlike some other reviewers, I’m not familiar with his nonfiction writing and as I usually scroll past images of dogs or cats on Instagram or Twitter I’ve not come across him on social media either. Therefore I didn’t know quite what to expect, a sensation that remained throughout the time I was reading the book.
Villager is a book which almost defies description due to its idiosyncratic style and non-linear structure. The novel ranges over a vast period from the dawn of time to the end of this century. It’s a cocktail of different narratives, in a variety of styles, all of which are connected to the village of Underhill and to an American musician, RJ McKendree who visited the area in the late 1960s and composed music inspired by local folksongs. Some meet him, others inhabit places he did, observe the same views as him or are inspired by his music.
One of the most inventive elements of the book is that Underhill and the surrounding area is presided over by an omniscient narrator, referred to as ‘Me’, whom I took to be the landscape itself. (Have a peek at the cover and you might spot ‘Me’.) ‘Me’ observes the goings-on of the inhabitants, knows all their secrets and reflects on the changes that have been wrought on the landscape by mankind, changes which have often caused it something akin to physical pain. ‘The countryside looks on, bemused at the way it’s been outgrown, bludgeoned, smoothed over, suppressed, raped, waiting for the revenge it will surely enjoy when we are gone.’ At times the landscape fights back. For example, the final nine holes of the golf course that has reduced many a player to swearing at sheep or hurling their golf clubs in the river. It works the other way as well. As ‘Me’ ruefully observes, ‘I don’t feel great today, and my not-greatness influences those around me. I made a buddleia visibly ill at ease this morning’.
An appreciation of nature and concern for the environment flow through the book. There are wonderful descriptions of the local landscape and wildlife. ‘The last purple streaks of the sun toasted the hilltops and owls made lewd suggestions to one another down in the woods by the river.’ On the subject of flowing, I especially enjoyed the way the author gives the rivers a personality, at times rebellious – ‘One is being a thug out back of the Coop, hissing and swearing at the locals’ – at other times, placid – ‘Today, though, the river was a pussycat. It purred around the boulders beneath his feet’.
The author employs a number of different narrative formats including journals, interactions with a search engine which has developed an unnerving ability to empathise and, most memorably for me, a community message board. The latter allows the author to give full rein to his wicked sense of humour in the often inconsequential chatter of the locals, the acerbic comments of one resident or the contributions of the mysterious Megan Beaker.
My favourite section was the one entitled ‘Papps Wedge’ which features couple, Sally and Bob (not Bob and Sally) whom we first in middle-age and then much later in 2043. It provides a glimpse of a future in which profit and human convenience is prioritised over environmental protection so a new train line ‘smashes through ancient woodland, f**ks over a couple of Elizabethan farmhouses, rapes and pillages the homesteads of hares, otters, stoats and badgers’. In addition, immersive technology has replaced direct experience for many people. Only Bob and a few like-minded people have rejected its use leaving them isolated in some ways but more in touch with the natural environment.
I’ll confess I found some parts of the book more challenging than others. For instance, many of the musical references in the section ‘Report of Debris’ went over my head. Alternatively if they were pure invention, I couldn’t tell.
Villager is endlessly inventive and jam-packed with thought-provoking ideas. I think it’s the kind of book that would repay re-reading.
Villager is a book which almost defies description due to its idiosyncratic style and non-linear structure. The novel ranges over a vast period from the dawn of time to the end of this century. It’s a cocktail of different narratives, in a variety of styles, all of which are connected to the village of Underhill and to an American musician, RJ McKendree who visited the area in the late 1960s and composed music inspired by local folksongs. Some meet him, others inhabit places he did, observe the same views as him or are inspired by his music.
One of the most inventive elements of the book is that Underhill and the surrounding area is presided over by an omniscient narrator, referred to as ‘Me’, whom I took to be the landscape itself. (Have a peek at the cover and you might spot ‘Me’.) ‘Me’ observes the goings-on of the inhabitants, knows all their secrets and reflects on the changes that have been wrought on the landscape by mankind, changes which have often caused it something akin to physical pain. ‘The countryside looks on, bemused at the way it’s been outgrown, bludgeoned, smoothed over, suppressed, raped, waiting for the revenge it will surely enjoy when we are gone.’ At times the landscape fights back. For example, the final nine holes of the golf course that has reduced many a player to swearing at sheep or hurling their golf clubs in the river. It works the other way as well. As ‘Me’ ruefully observes, ‘I don’t feel great today, and my not-greatness influences those around me. I made a buddleia visibly ill at ease this morning’.
An appreciation of nature and concern for the environment flow through the book. There are wonderful descriptions of the local landscape and wildlife. ‘The last purple streaks of the sun toasted the hilltops and owls made lewd suggestions to one another down in the woods by the river.’ On the subject of flowing, I especially enjoyed the way the author gives the rivers a personality, at times rebellious – ‘One is being a thug out back of the Coop, hissing and swearing at the locals’ – at other times, placid – ‘Today, though, the river was a pussycat. It purred around the boulders beneath his feet’.
The author employs a number of different narrative formats including journals, interactions with a search engine which has developed an unnerving ability to empathise and, most memorably for me, a community message board. The latter allows the author to give full rein to his wicked sense of humour in the often inconsequential chatter of the locals, the acerbic comments of one resident or the contributions of the mysterious Megan Beaker.
My favourite section was the one entitled ‘Papps Wedge’ which features couple, Sally and Bob (not Bob and Sally) whom we first in middle-age and then much later in 2043. It provides a glimpse of a future in which profit and human convenience is prioritised over environmental protection so a new train line ‘smashes through ancient woodland, f**ks over a couple of Elizabethan farmhouses, rapes and pillages the homesteads of hares, otters, stoats and badgers’. In addition, immersive technology has replaced direct experience for many people. Only Bob and a few like-minded people have rejected its use leaving them isolated in some ways but more in touch with the natural environment.
I’ll confess I found some parts of the book more challenging than others. For instance, many of the musical references in the section ‘Report of Debris’ went over my head. Alternatively if they were pure invention, I couldn’t tell.
Villager is endlessly inventive and jam-packed with thought-provoking ideas. I think it’s the kind of book that would repay re-reading.
June 14, 2023
I was really looking forward to reading this one as I could see from the synopsis and chapter headings that it was set in a rural West Country village covering quite a long period of time and not in strict chronological order.
But somehow I couldn't focus, I kept losing track of who was who and as far as I could tell there were sometimes tenuous connections between each section.
Tom Cox obviously cares passionately about the environment and I can definitely identify with that however the book disappointed.
But somehow I couldn't focus, I kept losing track of who was who and as far as I could tell there were sometimes tenuous connections between each section.
Tom Cox obviously cares passionately about the environment and I can definitely identify with that however the book disappointed.
January 3, 2023
I went into this book thinking it would be something completely different to what it was, having never read any of Tom Cox's work before, but I absolutely loved what I read. The short stories about a village and its inhabitants were amazing, some were hilarious (accurately depicting the chaos of a village messageboard made me laugh multiple times) and others were downright sad at times (looking at you Papp's Wedge).
The only way I think I could describe this book is by calling it warm and inviting, it tells the stories of people's lives, no matter how normal they were, in such a poetic and enchanting way that I just couldn't stop reading.
The only way I think I could describe this book is by calling it warm and inviting, it tells the stories of people's lives, no matter how normal they were, in such a poetic and enchanting way that I just couldn't stop reading.
June 1, 2022
The Dartmoor village of Underhill is exactly where you would expect, under a hill. It has a long history of occupation, the stone circle taking it back beyond recorded history. Some of the stories from the landscape have gone forever but others have permeated the local folklore if you know where to look.
The people that have lived in the village over this have their own stories to tell and the narrative switches between different characters from 100 years ago to almost 150 years in the future. They all have a different story to tell of their time spent there, from the music that was created there and became a cult in its own right. There is the story of a doctor seeing the ghost of a woman in a ruined barn and the discovery of a body by two golf man teenagers.
Each of these stories is connected by the main character of the book; the landscape. Its presence is often brooding and sometimes comforting in each of these short vignettes and it feels like it is watching over the inhabitants of the village as they change the land for better or for worse.
The stones will talk, I think, if you give them long enough
I have been a big fan of Tom Cox for ages, so much so that I have even read his golf book, and I really liked this. It took a few days to grow on me, and this, like his non-fiction, is full of quirks and tiny details that make me wonder just where he gets his ideas from. I really liked the underlying rumble of folk horror in the stories, it is there like a satisfying bass line in a favourite track, not enough to scare you, but enough to give a feeling of unease. It is not a conventional novel by any means and is a strong reflection of his interests and passions. I am so glad that I read this, if it wasn’t for Unbound then we may not have seen this as most publishers wouldn’t consider this a commercial book. I still think that his non-fiction writing has an edge over this, but I am very much looking forward to whatever he writes next.
The people that have lived in the village over this have their own stories to tell and the narrative switches between different characters from 100 years ago to almost 150 years in the future. They all have a different story to tell of their time spent there, from the music that was created there and became a cult in its own right. There is the story of a doctor seeing the ghost of a woman in a ruined barn and the discovery of a body by two golf man teenagers.
Each of these stories is connected by the main character of the book; the landscape. Its presence is often brooding and sometimes comforting in each of these short vignettes and it feels like it is watching over the inhabitants of the village as they change the land for better or for worse.
The stones will talk, I think, if you give them long enough
I have been a big fan of Tom Cox for ages, so much so that I have even read his golf book, and I really liked this. It took a few days to grow on me, and this, like his non-fiction, is full of quirks and tiny details that make me wonder just where he gets his ideas from. I really liked the underlying rumble of folk horror in the stories, it is there like a satisfying bass line in a favourite track, not enough to scare you, but enough to give a feeling of unease. It is not a conventional novel by any means and is a strong reflection of his interests and passions. I am so glad that I read this, if it wasn’t for Unbound then we may not have seen this as most publishers wouldn’t consider this a commercial book. I still think that his non-fiction writing has an edge over this, but I am very much looking forward to whatever he writes next.
April 25, 2023
Tom Cox is one of those writers I've thought about reading on and off for a while now... intrigued by the sound of his work (and those gorgeous covers), and his clear love of the countryside and cats certainly calls to me... but for some reason I always doubted if his style would appeal.
Villager started out brilliantly - I loved the opening chapter narrated by the hill itself! I thought I'd find the humour irritating but that wasn't the case. Tom's descriptions of the landscape were brilliant and unusual. But as much as I loved the first few stories, I soon became a bit tired of the whole thing. I couldn't quite grasp all the connections between the characters and decades and it all became a bit of a mess. I can't help but feel there was such a genius novel in here somewhere, but in the end it all felt a bit of a waste.
I'd certainly read Tom again, but Villager was ultimately not what I'd hoped it would be.
Villager started out brilliantly - I loved the opening chapter narrated by the hill itself! I thought I'd find the humour irritating but that wasn't the case. Tom's descriptions of the landscape were brilliant and unusual. But as much as I loved the first few stories, I soon became a bit tired of the whole thing. I couldn't quite grasp all the connections between the characters and decades and it all became a bit of a mess. I can't help but feel there was such a genius novel in here somewhere, but in the end it all felt a bit of a waste.
I'd certainly read Tom again, but Villager was ultimately not what I'd hoped it would be.
September 12, 2022
A generous 2.5. I know the author doesn’t invite comparisons, but this is nowhere near as good as Help The Witch.
April 26, 2022
I read this novel straight after reading Zoe Gilbert’s “Mischief Acts”, which was a coincidence because the structure of the novel is similar - individual stories that span a expanse of time, beginning in our past then ultimately giving us a glimpse of our (slightly alarming) future. However in Villager we move back and forth through time, meeting a multitude of characters (including the eternal landscape) and I really loved this whole journey.
With this sort of structure (and with this book in particular) the author has to place a lot of trust in us as a reader, as there is a resolute refusal to spoon feed the narrative (which I really appreciate).
Reading Villager bought to mind threads on a loom, overlapping and weaving within one another - some much more subtly than others - which is why it will benefit from a second reading. I realised early on I had to be patient, and rather than attempting to grasp the threads and hold on tight, to simply experience the story and let it be itself.
The way Tom writes is only getting better with each and every work he produces. There are so many lines which captivated me, lines of prose so beautifully written I have to underline them and read them out to my other half. As always I absolutely love his juxtaposition of deep and insightful moments alongside light and comedic depictions of the mundane, a true reflection of our lives if there ever was one. I feel more novels need to be unafraid of being funny - it doesn’t make the book any less ‘serious’, just more human, more interesting.
The moment where I realised who ‘Me (Now)’ was I was one of my favourites - I felt so connected to those chapters in particular and the description of the invention of light at the end of chapter 3 gave me goosebumps. The sense of place is intoxicating at times, I felt I could hear a rushing river or would look out of my window to see the fog of the moor. I loved the map of Underhill and kept referring back to it throughout the book to keep me tethered to where events were occurring.
I have a lot of anxiety around what is going on in our beautiful countryside and with our native wildlife, and also with the future of technology, so there were parts I found personally challenging to read. However this is by no means a pessimistic book, it is balanced with hope too and I huge sense of nature waiting for redemption.
Music is of course another one of the prevailing themes of the novel. The fictitious album that is so relevant in the book felt tangible, so I can’t wait to listen to the record that is being released as an accompaniment and see if if sounds anything like I imagined. I also loved reading about the painting in the book and was pleased to be able to look at the painting on the front on the soon to be released record - it all contributed to the feeling that it could just be real history of a place.
There is one thing that I noted, which
I’m sure is because I have been a follower of Tom’s work throughout the years, that is at times I did feel as though I was reading one of Tom’s previous non-fiction works. (If you are completely new to all of Tom’s work, then of course this won’t be a factor for you, skip this part!) I understand that authors use inspiration from their own lives to write novels - in fact I’m sure it is not physically possible to write a novel without some of the authors actual lived experience (at the most) or essence (at the very least) becoming part of the story. As a reader of Tom’s website and all his previous works, some of the occurrences and his opinions were simply given to a character with another name or gender - but as these were so familiar
to me already, I struggled to believe them as the experiences and thoughts of these particular characters. This method is not necessarily negative - look at the title story in Help the Witch - it is simply brilliant and I know a lot of this was experienced by Tom during his time in that remote house in Derbyshire. However there are also some stories in Help the Witch where opinions or lived experience do not appear to permeate as much (if at all) - in particular Robot, Listings, the Folk tales, an Oral history of Margaret and the Village - I find them completely immersive and utterly spellbinding - and I realised that I was hoping for a little more of that escape and folkloric alchemy in Villager.
I hope Tom will write another novel soon as well as another non fiction, where the latter can be those colourful lived experiences and observations that I know so many of us enjoy so much - but the novel can be an entirely separate animal - a step further removed from the authors life but with all the same artistic prowess, and rich imagination.
April 17, 2022
This is really rather special. The tale of a moor, and how it's affected by the people around it, tales of people living near a moor over generations, and the story of an album and how it echoes through years?
"Villager" is all of these and more. It's a remarkable dance through time, a series of stories focused around the village of Underhill, it's inhabitants, and a lost cult folk album.
I can't recommend this highly enough. There's nothing else quite it like around, although there are notes of Alan Garner. Thoroughly readable and immersive. Quite excellent.
"Villager" is all of these and more. It's a remarkable dance through time, a series of stories focused around the village of Underhill, it's inhabitants, and a lost cult folk album.
I can't recommend this highly enough. There's nothing else quite it like around, although there are notes of Alan Garner. Thoroughly readable and immersive. Quite excellent.
August 29, 2024
A humour and themes that absolutely click with me. After reading a couple of excellent non-fiction books by Tom Cox recently, I was a little worried that I wouldn't actually enjoy Villager.
Joyfully, I was wrong. Through multiple perspectives, over hundreds of years past, the now and to almost the end of the next century, lives and stories take root and resurface like modern legend. It brims with themes of folk song, environment, rural life and love.
An elusive musician who stays in a beach hut, generations of gravediggers, a Hungarian woman adored by her elderly landlady, a music journalist, a young golf player and his best friend, a man who falls in love with a piano tuner and watches the river rise, a largely forgotten artist. Oh, and you get the perspective of the hill of Underhill village herself. Cynical, playful, inhuman, ancient.
The stories are tied together in unexpected ways like a complex knot, with a beautiful pretzel of a novel at the end of it all. I do love pretzels.
Joyfully, I was wrong. Through multiple perspectives, over hundreds of years past, the now and to almost the end of the next century, lives and stories take root and resurface like modern legend. It brims with themes of folk song, environment, rural life and love.
An elusive musician who stays in a beach hut, generations of gravediggers, a Hungarian woman adored by her elderly landlady, a music journalist, a young golf player and his best friend, a man who falls in love with a piano tuner and watches the river rise, a largely forgotten artist. Oh, and you get the perspective of the hill of Underhill village herself. Cynical, playful, inhuman, ancient.
The stories are tied together in unexpected ways like a complex knot, with a beautiful pretzel of a novel at the end of it all. I do love pretzels.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 11, 2024
Cox always writes in a kind of disjointed, stream of consciousness way, and where that was a bit irritating in 21st Century Yokel, it works better here. He also has an habit of writing paragraphs which last pages and streams without pause, which can be tiring. I think that’s probably the way his mind works. Having said that this is much more entertaining and follows threads through time about the Village of Underhill and its various inhabitants. The visor people was depressingly plausible. 3.5 rounded up.
June 21, 2023
Overly wordy, long sentences that I often had to read twice to work out what they were saying. There is such a thing as too much description. Found this difficult to even finish honestly.
May 22, 2022
3.5 Stars. Tom Cox first came to my attention with his warm and amusing non-fiction books about life with his cats (Under the Paw; Talk to the Tail; The Good, the Bad, and The Furry; and Close Encounters of the Furred Kind). His subsequent moves, firstly into a form of nature writing that blended observations of the natural world with folklore, ghost stories, and amusing interludes from his dad (21st-Century Yokel, Ring the Hill and Notebook) and, later, into short fiction (Help the Witch), demonstrated both his range and his skill as a writer whose work defies easy categorisation.
Villager – Cox’s first novel – appears, on the surface at least, to comprise of a similar miscellany of interests, with the story ranging from the the early parts of the twentieth century through to the not-too-distant future, taking in Cox’s passions for music, nature, and folklore along the way. As a result the novel can, in the early portions at least, feel somewhat disjointed: closer to an interconnected short story collection than a cohesive narrative.
Stick with it, however, and Cox’s tale of a moor, a village, and several generations of its inhabitants, takes its reader on a kaleidoscopic and psychedelic but ultimately rewarding journey that reveals the subtle connections between a landscape and the people who inhabit it, and hints at the consequences that come about as a result of our increasing disconnect with the countryside that we inhabit.
Whilst the narrative structure requires readers to do a little legwork to draw out the connections, the individual voices within the chapters resonate with Cox’s trademark warmth and dry humour. Interspersed with the voice of ‘Me (Now)’, the novels moves between people and time periods to trace the overlapping and interweaving lives of the village of Underhill and its inhabitants, with a central thread following the arrival and impact of a washed-up Californian musician and the folk songs he leaves behind him.
Juxtaposing comedic observations of the mundane and wry pen portraits of village life with moments of insight into everything from human motivation to environmental impact, Cox’s writing is as layered as his narrative and I often found myself moving between laughter one moment and an uneasy melancholy in the next. Whilst some characters resonated with me more than others – I particularly liked the golf-obsessed teenager and the narrative of ‘Me (Now)’ – Villager offers such a varied plethora of voices that the narrative, although reflective and lyrical, never felt bogged down or meandering. Instead, the choral nature helped me to become more immersed into the novel as each new voice gradually reveals a segment of the wider narrative.
Villager is definitely not going to be a novel for everyone. The narrative structure and lyrical writing require some effort on the part of the reader, whilst the gentle pacing – especially at the novel’s start – requires some patience. Those new to Cox’s writing may prefer to start with his (excellent) short story collection, Help the Witch, or with some of the non-fiction writing on his (also excellent) blog to get a feel for his style prior to diving in. For fans of Cox’s work – and readers who enjoy lyrical, genre-defying fiction by writers such as Alan Garner – Villager is an ambitious, unique, and ultimately rewarding read.
NB: This review also appears on my blog at https://theshelfofunreadbooks.wordpre... as part of the blog tour for the book and I was part of the crowdfund for the book's publication on Unbound.
Villager – Cox’s first novel – appears, on the surface at least, to comprise of a similar miscellany of interests, with the story ranging from the the early parts of the twentieth century through to the not-too-distant future, taking in Cox’s passions for music, nature, and folklore along the way. As a result the novel can, in the early portions at least, feel somewhat disjointed: closer to an interconnected short story collection than a cohesive narrative.
Stick with it, however, and Cox’s tale of a moor, a village, and several generations of its inhabitants, takes its reader on a kaleidoscopic and psychedelic but ultimately rewarding journey that reveals the subtle connections between a landscape and the people who inhabit it, and hints at the consequences that come about as a result of our increasing disconnect with the countryside that we inhabit.
Whilst the narrative structure requires readers to do a little legwork to draw out the connections, the individual voices within the chapters resonate with Cox’s trademark warmth and dry humour. Interspersed with the voice of ‘Me (Now)’, the novels moves between people and time periods to trace the overlapping and interweaving lives of the village of Underhill and its inhabitants, with a central thread following the arrival and impact of a washed-up Californian musician and the folk songs he leaves behind him.
Juxtaposing comedic observations of the mundane and wry pen portraits of village life with moments of insight into everything from human motivation to environmental impact, Cox’s writing is as layered as his narrative and I often found myself moving between laughter one moment and an uneasy melancholy in the next. Whilst some characters resonated with me more than others – I particularly liked the golf-obsessed teenager and the narrative of ‘Me (Now)’ – Villager offers such a varied plethora of voices that the narrative, although reflective and lyrical, never felt bogged down or meandering. Instead, the choral nature helped me to become more immersed into the novel as each new voice gradually reveals a segment of the wider narrative.
Villager is definitely not going to be a novel for everyone. The narrative structure and lyrical writing require some effort on the part of the reader, whilst the gentle pacing – especially at the novel’s start – requires some patience. Those new to Cox’s writing may prefer to start with his (excellent) short story collection, Help the Witch, or with some of the non-fiction writing on his (also excellent) blog to get a feel for his style prior to diving in. For fans of Cox’s work – and readers who enjoy lyrical, genre-defying fiction by writers such as Alan Garner – Villager is an ambitious, unique, and ultimately rewarding read.
NB: This review also appears on my blog at https://theshelfofunreadbooks.wordpre... as part of the blog tour for the book and I was part of the crowdfund for the book's publication on Unbound.
September 9, 2025
A lovely, warm-hearted, generous book about a village, the moor, music, human connection, human distraction, love, loss, creative endeavor, and the homes, roads, paths, fences, post offices, guitars, cucumbers, and psychedelic dolls hidden in damp stone walls. Absolutely brilliant, hilarious, and touching. A joy to read.
September 6, 2022
All of Cox's Hallmark traits are here, quirk and charm and whimsy, and curiosity, shot through with the profound love of the 'deep south west' landscape and fears for it's environmental health.
Villager is a fantasia, or rather, a one-pot stew, where everything is thrown in together seemingly artlessly, but with surprising connections and subtleties coming out of the elements as they jostle.
I enjoyed it, though, truth to tell, I did slightly prefer Ring the Hill and 21st Century Yokel for their realism and connection to concrete, physical places you can visit. People that had actually spoken. For me that's more powerful.
Here Cox wanders off-piste, into the village of Underhill, which is really the Dartmoor he carries in his mind. He's seeking that ever elusive quality, like a lost thread of song always on the edge of memory and always just remaining half-remembered. His skill is that he manages to convince you it's out there too. If you're not careful, he'll have you out looking for it.
***** Great
**** Good
*** Fair
** Poor
* Dire
Villager is a fantasia, or rather, a one-pot stew, where everything is thrown in together seemingly artlessly, but with surprising connections and subtleties coming out of the elements as they jostle.
I enjoyed it, though, truth to tell, I did slightly prefer Ring the Hill and 21st Century Yokel for their realism and connection to concrete, physical places you can visit. People that had actually spoken. For me that's more powerful.
Here Cox wanders off-piste, into the village of Underhill, which is really the Dartmoor he carries in his mind. He's seeking that ever elusive quality, like a lost thread of song always on the edge of memory and always just remaining half-remembered. His skill is that he manages to convince you it's out there too. If you're not careful, he'll have you out looking for it.
***** Great
**** Good
*** Fair
** Poor
* Dire
August 7, 2023
Although Tom Cox has written many books. "Villager" is his debut novel. The book tells many stories over the course of centuries, all taking place in or around the British village of Underhill. Eventually the reader learns that a lost classic album of the 1960s by fictional musician R.J. McKendree is the real focus. The chapters about McKendree and the LP "Wallflower" were by far my favorite parts as Cox incorporates real artists from the time and he obviously knows a lot about folk and psychedelic music. Unfortunately, I found other parts of the book to be a bit too oddball and without purpose, other than to make some tenuous connection to "Wallflower." The author even went so far as to hire musician Will Twynham to create the album and release it on Spotify and other streaming platforms. I found it interesting, and it did add to my enjoyment of the book. 3.5 stars.
May 8, 2022
I really wanted to love this as much as I have loved Tom Cox's other writing over the years. There were brilliant flashes of his trademark style but I just felt this wasn't for me. I'm disappointed but this in no way detracts from the fact that his writing is top notch and I just prefer his non-fiction.
May 4, 2022
Half wishing I had saved reading this one until our holiday in Cornwall (where we stay in a converted horsebox) as it's a lush wild book and feels as though it should be read immersed in nature (or at least abutting it) rather in a suburban semi!
Mystical, musical, meandering. A joy to read.
Mystical, musical, meandering. A joy to read.
May 26, 2022
Villager is a ramble through the history of a village at the foot of a tor. Hares and wild ponies, a stone circle and a church are on the map. Crows circle the crown of the hill. Mystical voices from distant eras comment on the doings of the living. At times the past of the village orbits eerily close to its present, with startling results. I loved ‘Message Board (2012)’, in which a member of the Beaker tribe who lived in Underhill during the Bronze Age appears to join a WhatsApp chat. Some of the stories have a ‘coming-of-age’ feel. Cox shows how young people fail to appreciate days they will look back on as the best of their lives. Other tales focus on relationships between loners, which scrape the surface of friendship but never reach the core. The passages about rivers are stunning. Cox writes brilliantly about the power of moving water.
The arts are important to the structure of Villager. It opens with a painting and ends with an exploration of the life of a semi-mythical folk singer. The time line is eclectic, with episodes set at various times between 1932 and 2099. The underlying narrative of these episodes is expressed by the tor itself in the sections labelled ‘Me’, which are written in first person and present tense. By personifying the tor and giving it a human voice, Cox expresses some intriguing ideas about time and the earth. ‘I desire love,’ says the tor. ‘I want to see it thrive. But I also want blood.’
In March 21, I reviewed Tom Cox’s previous book, Notebook. I described this collection of jottings as a funny and perceptive examination of the absurdities of everyday life. Cox has moved on from casually observing the world around him to a deeper and darker analysis. Villager is equally as satirical and engaging as Notebook, but there is an increased awareness of ancient wisdom. The author explores links between the experiences of people who lived in Devon thousands of years ago and modern day villagers. The strongest of these links between the generations is the land itself.
I recommend Villager to fans of folk music, lovers of Dartmoor and readers of witty short stories.
The arts are important to the structure of Villager. It opens with a painting and ends with an exploration of the life of a semi-mythical folk singer. The time line is eclectic, with episodes set at various times between 1932 and 2099. The underlying narrative of these episodes is expressed by the tor itself in the sections labelled ‘Me’, which are written in first person and present tense. By personifying the tor and giving it a human voice, Cox expresses some intriguing ideas about time and the earth. ‘I desire love,’ says the tor. ‘I want to see it thrive. But I also want blood.’
In March 21, I reviewed Tom Cox’s previous book, Notebook. I described this collection of jottings as a funny and perceptive examination of the absurdities of everyday life. Cox has moved on from casually observing the world around him to a deeper and darker analysis. Villager is equally as satirical and engaging as Notebook, but there is an increased awareness of ancient wisdom. The author explores links between the experiences of people who lived in Devon thousands of years ago and modern day villagers. The strongest of these links between the generations is the land itself.
I recommend Villager to fans of folk music, lovers of Dartmoor and readers of witty short stories.
August 3, 2023
I got this book at a bookstore in London on a whim, and I’m so glad it did. A love letter to music, nature, and community, this book spins a complex tale told through multiple generations, yet all united through a place and history. I enjoyed reading the various points of view, and it was always an amazing moment to find a connection between POVs. While this book definitely had some hard to follow moments, it was overall an incredible read. It truly made me think about the environment, technology, and our future. I definitely recommend this.
September 3, 2024
Villager is pure joy.
Reading it is like going for an epic ramble through the countryside with a mad old chap you met in the pub.
This book smells of earth, of moss, of the damp corners in the tumble-down house, wax jackets and the musty but intoxicating smell of an old Land Rover.
It sings of birdsong, folk song, rain pour, river run. Of flickering fire, clinking glasses, tears cried and gossip overheard.
It is a psychedelic, swirling voyage into folk- country, whispering of past, future and present.
Reading it is like going for an epic ramble through the countryside with a mad old chap you met in the pub.
This book smells of earth, of moss, of the damp corners in the tumble-down house, wax jackets and the musty but intoxicating smell of an old Land Rover.
It sings of birdsong, folk song, rain pour, river run. Of flickering fire, clinking glasses, tears cried and gossip overheard.
It is a psychedelic, swirling voyage into folk- country, whispering of past, future and present.
December 23, 2024
Bold statement: This might be my favourite short story collection (if one can call it that) I’ve ever read
January 5, 2025
Pure magic xo
November 12, 2025
3.5 rounded up. I love Tom Cox's writing, he's very witty and clever and I adore his nonfiction work but I did find this a little harder to get through. I'm not really sure why, but I just didn't feel that connected to some of the characters/chapters, whilst others I did.
November 5, 2025
I’ve been following Tom Cox online since I saw a social media post of his a few years ago about the old Ladybird books I loved as a kid. I enjoy his newsletter, and I bought this novel when it was first published, just after signing up for it. It’s a rather quirky book, which is precisely what I was expecting it to be. It follows the life of the fictional village of Underhill in southwest England, possibly in Devonshire, where Cox was living at the time and may still be. I say ‘life’ deliberately, as that’s how Underhill is portrayed, as a character in history whose inhabitants and visitors live, love and leave their mark on it. I know that Cox has written as a music journalist, and that has found its way into the novel. The novel has a strong folkloric element, reminding me a little of Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising sequence, but in Cox’s case, it would be The Light that is rising.
March 28, 2024
PHOTO: By Tom Cox
Having recently finished The Island of Missing Trees (see review), in which a tree narrates, it was just a matter of time before I found a book narrated by a land mass, right?
First let me just say, Tom Vox's mom is friggin' AWESOME! "‘Do you always make sure you smell nice before you meet Martha?’ my mum asked, one day when she found me moping about the house. ‘Of course,’ I replied. ‘Well, it’s her loss, then.’" I mean, totally, right? I remember any number of guys by their cologne rather than their names--in my day, it was English Leather. (There. Yes. I'm old.)
Tom, however, was not quite as tuned in as his mum. For a long time, he didn't realize his bff had been racially belittled at their golf club::
"‘So it was you all along?’ I asked Mark. ‘Well, yeah. Me. Some friends. Christine, sometimes. But mostly me.’ ‘But why? I mean, I thought it was pretty funny. But why?’ ‘You really have to ask? You know what they called me up there, the way they spoke about me. I’d had enough.’ ‘No. Well, sort of. Yes. No. What? Who?’ ‘“Jam Jar”. The members at the club. You didn’t know that?’ ‘I didn’t realise that was you. I always wondered who they were talking about and why they said that.’ ‘It’s a reference to golliwogs, like you get on the Robertson’s jam jars. The black-faced dolls. You know the ones. No, they didn’t come straight out and call me “golliwog” or “wog” but you know what it means, you know what they’re getting at: it’s a degrading term for a non-white person. A belittling. A put-down."
I so deeply appreciate his take on nature, although his moor is definitely male. He DOES get that all our most precious moments in nature are, "Something that’s not even yours but that’s not another person’s either. Something on loan from the earth.’" Then again, nature is objective and not naturally nurturing, as we always want to believe:
"An old octopus of a tree reached down a rough tentacle and anointed his cheek with a bloody scratch. In his shoes, the soles of his feet sloshed about and blistered and began their transformation into a sore kind of paste. Every path became a whisper and then a lie. A stiff gate opened but led directly to a shrub of insanity."
Animals, of course, are quite comfortable in nature--not so with humans, however:
"When you walk a lot in the countryside, you get a crystallised realisation that most animals are united by one factor: their conditioning, over the course of thousands of years of hard, regrettable evidence, to be shit scared of humans." For excellent good cause, of course, as our species has an apparently insatiable need to kill.
And then, there are insects. I've read that the entire weight of insects on Earth vastly outweighs our own. They decimate Tom's kale before venturing to move into his home, which is soon theirs:
"A week: that’s how long it took the cabbage whites to decimate my kale. I leave them to it and don’t begrudge them their meals. I grew far too much anyway and was beginning to tire of kale curries. After the caterpillars finished their business, they moved towards the house and appear to have earmarked it as an excellent place to pupate. I counted more than eighty chrysalises on the back wall and at least a dozen more have made it indoors. Today, I found an earwig in my lentil and tomato soup. Yesterday I watched an enormous spider stealthily lowering itself from the lampshade onto my pillow on a gossamer homemade rope. ‘Hey! What are you doing?’ I shouted, and it stopped, as if in embarrassment. The mason bees are turning up in the house more and more often, dopey or deceased. It’s an insect’s world here; Reka and I just live in it." Spiders have often stopped in their tracks as I addressed them, so I know they either hear or sense vocal vibrations, but I never paused to think they might be embarrassed!--still, it's a lovely notion.
When he first starts in on RJ McKendree's history (which is quite long and detailed), I wasn't at all interested. What was this about some painting by a Joyce Nicholas I've never heard of? Or McKendree, for that matter? Could this author get any more into the weeds of obscurity?? Curious, in an 'I'm only looking to discredit this author' kind of way (yes, awful of me, I admit), I actually found the album Wallflower on YouTube. The music is haunting: metallic, eastern, a kind of chant, a mossy resonance, in an unknown scale. Oh my, it sounded like--THE MOOR. As I listened my mind conjured piskies and flibbertygibbets living in the forest there. And the painting! It's the album cover, and it's a riot of color, with a moon/sun almost embedded in the land itself. Tom Cox was opening my ears and my mind. Well, THAT's unusual, in my reading. I'm not militaristic or anything in my handle on life--my mind is often at least tilted a tad by what I read, but THIS was on a whole other level.
As an aside, let me note here that I came across a few delightful words new to me, GINNEL being just one. Even the concept of it was novel: a ginnel is a walkway between two houses, allowing people to walk through to the next block without having to go all the way around. How thoughtful! Of course, here in the USA we have nothing like it, unaccustomed as we are to being thoughtful about other people. I also learned that another word for ginnel is SNICKET. Here, I had a good laugh. Just think: Lemony Snicket might've been Lemony Ginnel! Too funny.
The very best chapter of the book is titled "Message Board (2012)." If you've ever even momentarily
made the mistake of joining a community message board, you will immediately recognize it, here. There's one woman who's got a putdown for every single item posted--clearly not a joiner, yet paradoxically ever present. Another woman keeps wanting somebody to check in on an elderly couple--completely ignoring the answers she receives from said couple, who are perfectly well and competent, thank you very much. The one saving grace of this message board, unlike those I've known, is that this one appears to be haunted; that woman is my very favorite of all. Well, that and how hysterically funny it all is.
There's excellent commentary in here about the pandemic, and the 1%, and the terrible pace of modern life driving us to extinction--but we know all of that. Nice to know, though, that the moor's understanding of it all is deep. I now greedily follow Tom Cox in Substack, where I save many of his photos (which would likely scandalize him, as HE never does that.)
One last item: in his Substack articles, he's written that whenever we see a recipe that calls for 2 garlic cloves, assume it's a typo--and add 6. Man after me own heart.
August 21, 2024
I really got behind reading this one, but my internet went out for a day and a half and I finally got a pair of reading glasses, so I had no excuses for not picking it back up -- especially with a brand new copy of Cox's 1983 having just arrived last week.
This is another heavily atmospheric read, the plot a lazy stream that runs through many people's lives, the moor they live on touching each of them in a perfect replication of how the web of an ecosystem works. (Also, the moor is sentient and the main character.)
It reminded me a bit of Russian novels in that "the author is actually philosopher but doesn't know that you can just write a philosophy book, so they use fiction as a vehicle" sort of way. (It wasn't just Ayn Rand who did that.) But it doesn't make me want to stab my eyes out or root for the characters to die so that I can stop reading, the way that Russian novels always did. This made me want to sit in the shade of the early days of summer with a glass of cold lemonade and smell greenness and earth while reading and kind of wishing I were a moor.
Plus, the book has a soundtrack... which, really, is the other main character. You know I'm a sucker for a book with a soundtrack.
This is another heavily atmospheric read, the plot a lazy stream that runs through many people's lives, the moor they live on touching each of them in a perfect replication of how the web of an ecosystem works. (Also, the moor is sentient and the main character.)
It reminded me a bit of Russian novels in that "the author is actually philosopher but doesn't know that you can just write a philosophy book, so they use fiction as a vehicle" sort of way. (It wasn't just Ayn Rand who did that.) But it doesn't make me want to stab my eyes out or root for the characters to die so that I can stop reading, the way that Russian novels always did. This made me want to sit in the shade of the early days of summer with a glass of cold lemonade and smell greenness and earth while reading and kind of wishing I were a moor.
Plus, the book has a soundtrack... which, really, is the other main character. You know I'm a sucker for a book with a soundtrack.
July 11, 2023
Another polyphonic novel - to my mind essentially a series of interlinked short stories - ranging across time but set in the same place. No overarching, conventional story arc as a result, but that’s not an issue. Alongside the main voices, I have enjoyed the challenge of remembering the names of, and piecing together histories for, characters that are mentioned only in passing. And I have really enjoyed the loquaciousness of the writing, the conversational tone, the wordiness, the humour. As a novel it affirms for me the importance of the creative arts to us as individuals, whatever might have inspired that form of art, and however well-known or obscure it might be. It’s all good for the life and soul. It also feels particularly British to me, part of a genre of contemporary rural/pastoral novels (see also Benjamin Myers, Sarah Moss et al) that sit alongside an equivalent non-fiction one of nature writing, and I love that. Really very good.
November 2, 2023
DNF. I wanted to like it, it sounded so interesting. But when I can’t get into a book within the first 50 pages I have to move on. Life is too short.
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