The Blue Tent

Richard Gwyn (Parthian)

The Blue Tent is Wales Book Of The Year-winning author Richard Gwyn’s latest novella, and it is dream-like, bizarre and mesmerising. The first-person narrator, living alone in his aunt Megan’s isolated home laden with childhood memories, books and a backdrop for sleepless nights, is perturbed when a mysterious blue tent arrives in his garden. More disturbing yet are the people who emerge from the tent, mainly Alice, taking an isolated – but not altogether lonely – life and quickly becoming a part of it. This triumph of magical realism, set to scenes of Wales’ Black Mountains and maintaining consistently funny turns of phrase, balances the plot’s momentum with intricate scenic description, making the pace quick but unrushed, likenable to how the narrator describes his life prior to the tent’s mysterious arrival: “Although the pace of my life here is slow, my days are by no means idle.” MTh

Price: £9.99. Info: www.parthianbooks.com