The Coward’s Tale
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Review
`A rich seam of fables conjuring a community bound together by tragedy and secrets. Everyone knows something about someone but only one man knows everything about everyone. The Coward's own tale is the bravest of all' --Damian Barr
Review
My novel of the year ... an extraordinarily lyrical, moving, funny evocation of a Welsh mining town and its inhabitants ... A terrific achievement -- A.N. Wilson Financial Times BOOK OF THE YEAR This first novel is a gem ... A comparison might be made with Under Milk Wood - but even though I'm a Dylan Thomas fan, for me, Gebbie's understated anatomy of a Welsh town outsoars him. It's less whimsical, and at its heart is a gritty awareness of what's happened to this former mining community in the 21st century - with the interlocking tales building up into a poignant, unforgettable picture. This is a real writer - you'll be hearing a lot more of her Reader's Digest Gebbie's prose has something of the musical rhythm and cadence of Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood. The lilting dialect is seductive and the poetic sweep through a town and its folk reminiscent of Jon McGregor's masterpiece, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things. The poetry is unobtrusive but makes the characters live and breathe ... heartbreaking ... a hypnotic debut Independent The unlikely but entirely legitimate child of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Dylan Thomas, The Coward's Tale invests everyday life with a quality at once whimsical and heroic Charles Lambert Tender and gripping - a brilliantly written epic Maggie Gee A rich seam of fables conjuring a community bound together by tragedy and secrets. Everyone knows something about someone but only one man knows everything about everyone. The Coward's own tale is the bravest of all Damian Barr Compulsively readable. She writes with such warmth and kindness Mari Strachan, author of The Earth Hums in B Flat Gebbie's voice catches Thomas's lyricism ... But it is Ianto's own history, tragically entangled with the colliery disaster which devastated the town two generations previously, that proves the most spellbinding Guardian An absorbing portrait of love, grief and humanity ... Gebbie's first full-length novel is richly poetic, its landscape steeped in the Welsh landscape and the texture of the rain-washed street Psychologies The Coward's Tale is a Russian doll of a book, layers within layers, histories, ghosts, superstitions and secrets. It shines a light through the material of human nature, our successes and failings, strengths and weaknesses, pride and vanity and love ... Timeless. Storytelling at its best Salena Godden The tales are gripping, the language powerful and at times almost poetic ... This book is a human, thoughtful collection of a community's reaction to a tragedy which touched the lives and hearts of so many people ... The Coward's Tale is a must-read Lifestyle
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The writing style does take a page or two to get used to, but once you do, you're off and running. The Welsh village comes to life as Vanessa draws out the tales of the characters you'll come to know and love. It's an interesting, endearing and cleverly woven fable, with realistic, exquisite detail. The darkness from her short story collections is not as much evident in this, her first novel. I'm looking forward to the sequel!
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I have really enjoyed this book, with its cleverly interwoven stories of the people of a small Welsh town. The sense of community and the way lives intersect through events was very strong, and I really liked the eccentricities of the characters. The writing is very good so it draws you into believing the quirks and it has been a pleasure visualising people like the baker who throws his bad bread into the river, the woodwork teacher making feathers and the groups of cinemagoers who repeatedly fall under the storytelling spell of the beggar Ianto Jenkins, and never make it to the films.
In the unusual tales of a community it reminded me of Louis de Berniere's early books, but with more of a bittersweet tone and quieter characters, carrying the inheritance of a tragedy in the town with them.
In the unusual tales of a community it reminded me of Louis de Berniere's early books, but with more of a bittersweet tone and quieter characters, carrying the inheritance of a tragedy in the town with them.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I read the last few chapters of The Cowards Tale in bed this morning with the conflicting emotions I always get when coming to the end of a book I have come to love - joy at the unfolding and elegant culmination of the story journey I've been on, and sadness that there are no more pages left to turn.
Huge congrats Vanessa for a beautiful lyrical tale. The gentle yet powerful narrative pulled me in before I knew it and having spent much of the past year going back to my original home in South Wales and regularly driving up the Rhondda, through Merthyr and over Dowlais Top to Blaina, the sense of place, voice and idiom were joyously & poignantly accurate.
Huge congrats Vanessa for a beautiful lyrical tale. The gentle yet powerful narrative pulled me in before I knew it and having spent much of the past year going back to my original home in South Wales and regularly driving up the Rhondda, through Merthyr and over Dowlais Top to Blaina, the sense of place, voice and idiom were joyously & poignantly accurate.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Beautifully Written
This novel is so poetic, original, melancholy and humorous. It was like walking through a different, yet very real, world, and getting to know those who inhabit it in a very deep... Read more
Published 3 days ago by Sophie Playle
A magical book of insight, whimsy, humour, heartbreak and healing
`My name is Ianto Jenkins. I am a coward'
So starts The Coward's Tale by Vanessa Gebbie, a book so magical and lyrical that even three weeks after finishing it, I ache to go... Read more
So starts The Coward's Tale by Vanessa Gebbie, a book so magical and lyrical that even three weeks after finishing it, I ache to go... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Nettie Thomson
A Wonderful Web of Narrative
Having previously read, and loved, Vanessa Gebbie's short- and flash-fictions in Words from a Glass Bubble and Storm Warning, I was interested to see how she would turn her hand to... Read more
Published 2 months ago by C. A. Kerr
"Just because the clouds are over the Beacons, does not mean that the...
Set in the mining country of southern Wales, Vanessa Gebbie's incandescent new novel captures the cadences and speech patterns that lovers of Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood have... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Mary Whipple
A string of fresh, Welsh pearls
This is a delightful string of vignettes about the characters living in a small Welsh community and their interactions. Rather in the same vein as 'Under Milkwood'. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Judi Moore
The Coward's Tale
A haunting book. The imagery in unrolling the history of the characters devolving from the Kindly Light disaster was masterly - giving understanding to Ianto Jenkins' belief that... Read more
Published 3 months ago by mavis
Perfect
I think this has to be one of the most complete books I have ever read.
The language is so exquisite, the characters so rich and the descriptions so painfully beautiful,... Read more
The language is so exquisite, the characters so rich and the descriptions so painfully beautiful,... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Joanna Cannon
Mesmerising and profound.
What a fabulous book this is! There is such breadth in its telling narrative and an evident love of language - a true gift in this writer's hands - that heightens the tenderness... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Bluefish
Mesmerising
What a beautiful book. It is only the second week of January, but I can't believe I'll read a better novel this year. The prose is rich and poetic, the dialogue is just wonderful. Read more
Published 4 months ago by J. Wilson
Original and wonderful!
Individual life stories weave round each other like the streams and the wind weave round the Welsh village, home to the Kindly Light mine, whose tragedy has left its stamp on every... Read more
Published 5 months ago by sibyl
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