My Name Is Yip, Paddy Crewe
My Name Is Yip, Paddy Crewe
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My Name Is Yip
A Novel

Author: Paddy Crewe

Narrator: Sean Bridgers

Unabridged: 11 hr 9 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/14/2022

Synopsis

A bold, revisionist take on the Western novel set in the Georgia gold rush, for readers of Charles Portis and Cormac McCarthy, by a powerful debut novelist with an original voiceIt’s 1815 in the small town of Heron’s Creek, Georgia, when Yip Tolroy––mute, medical anomaly, and social outcast––is born. His father has disappeared under mysterious circumstances, so he is raised by his mother: a powerful, troubled, independent woman who owns and runs a general store. She struggles to manage his needs, leaving Yip to find the means of asserting himself in an unforgiving, hostile environment. With the help of a retired doctor, he begins to transform his life by learning to read and write, his portal into the community a piece of slate and a supply of chalk.And then at the age of fifteen, Yip’s life is altered irrevocably. In the space of a few days he witnesses the discovery of gold, meets his faithful friend and comrade Dud Carter, and commits a grievous crime. Thrust unwittingly into a world of violence and sin, Yip and Dud are forced to leave town and embark on an odyssey that will introduce them to the wonder and horror of the American frontier until the revelation of a secret means they must return to Heron’s Creek and the fate that awaits them. With its colorful description of people and places, comic backbone, and compelling narrator, My Name Is Yip is a bold adventure––a gripping tale of courage, struggle, hope, and brotherhood––that reckons with the seductive pull of the American South and its dark and complex histories.

About Paddy Crewe

Paddy Crewe was born in the North East of England and studied at Goldsmiths College in London. His first love was sports, and he pursued a career as a professional rugby player until he turned to books and started to write. Since then, he’s never looked back.

Reviews

Goodreads review by PattyMacDotComma

4★ “No hair ever growed on my head or nowhere else, no dark shock nested in my armpits or lined in bristling ceremony upon my upper lip.” Yip Tolroy is one of the most unusual characters, in both senses of the word, that I have come across. As a fictional protagonist, I think he is unique. In real lif......more

Goodreads review by Mallory

This book was described as a bold revisionist take on the American frontier novel and I don’t think there are truer words. The narrator is Yip who is a short, hairless mute in Georgia in the early 1800’s. He tells a compelling story, but the format/cadence of the story is a little odd. Overall I fou......more

Quotes

“In his own appealingly eccentric vernacular, Yip tells how the discovery of gold and the commission of a crime get him and his new friend, Dud Carter, into a ‘spot of bother’ that requires a rapid exit from town.” New York Times Book Review

“A rollicking picaresque set in early nineteenth-century Appalachia…like a one-of-a-kind mash-up of Charles Dickens and Cormac McCarthy.” Publishers Weekly

“Bridgers’s performance allows the listener to easily digest the sometimes stilted nineteenth-century speech…Bridgers provides a folksy, introspective portrayal of the determined outcast…Best of all is Bridgers’s characterization of Dud Carter, Yip’s unwaveringly cheerful sidekick, whose faith in him is steadfast.” AudioFile

“A jaunt through old Americana with well-expressed characters and interesting events…The writing sparkles and his character-work is perhaps second to none.” Virginia Living

“A well-considered look at the American South…an entertaining piece of Americana, with prose at once lush and convincingly down home.” Criminal Element

“Vividly recreated period details…elements of the gothic, burlesque, and grotesque come together.” Literary Review

“Extraordinary and vivid…Crewe has hit gold here.” The Times (London)

“An ambitious, cinematic debut novel.” The Guardian (London)

“My Name Is Yip is thrilling…brim-full of humor, strangeness, and charm.” Ian McGuire, Booker Prize–longlisted author of The North Water

“What an astonishing book My Name Is Yip is! I love this book, everything about it.” Eric Wagner, author of Chief Engineer

Awards

  • London Times Pick
  • New York Times Book Review pick
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