Larchfield
In 1930, a young man, torn apart by his illegal desire, stands on a deserted Scottish beach. Wystan H. Auden is only twenty-four and longing to be a great poet; longing too, for someone who understands him. He scribbles his telephone number on a piece of paper, puts it in an empty milk bottle, and flings it into the sea.
Decades later, Dora Fielding stands on the same beach, lost and desperate. Struggling to cope alone with her baby and suffocating in the small town, she yearns for connection. This is when she finds the message in the bottle. And calls the number.
What happens next is a breathtaking leap of faith that rejoices in the power of the human imagination.
Listen to Larchfield: the Podcast here. This is the first audio version of Larchfield, read by the author and available to paid subscribers:
Richard Ford
Larchfield is that rarest of rare first novels - a book that actually achieves its great ambition. I found it so immensely readable; it's brainy, verbally acute and knowing, with an ingenious literary historical premise that it impressively (and artfully) carries off right in front of your eyes. It's work of considerable talent
Louis de Bernieres
This is a mysterious, wondrous, captivating book
Daisy Dunn, The Times
Clark has a wonderful eye for detail and a light comic touch . . . A funny, poised, and affecting meditation on the healing power of poetry
John Fuller
A fine novel of rich mysteries. What an original way to explore the assembling or collapse of identity; the reader has a powerful sense of a kind of vortex into which the two main characters are drawn - with a masterly stroke of unexpected impossibility standing in for a moment of mental collapse. I was riveted.
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