Книга Undercurrent: shortlisted for the Nero Book Awards 2023
'Haunting and powerful' KATE MOSSE
To grow up in rural poverty is to fight for life before you can walk.
Natasha Carthew was born into a world that sat alongside picture-postcard Cornwall, one where second homes took the sea view of council properties, summer months shifted the course of people's lives, and wealth converged with poverty on sandy beaches.
In the rockpools and hedgerows of the natural world, Natasha found solace in the beauty of the landscape, and in the mobile library she found her means of escape. In Undercurrent she returns to the cliff paths of her childhood, determined to make sense of an upbringing shaped by political neglect and a life defined by the beauty of nature.
This is a journey through place, and a vivid story of hope, beauty and fierce resilience.
'Marvellous, moving and mesmerising' ANITA SETHI
'A story of queer resistance, of community and of finding your own voice' DAMIAN BARR
"A powerful story of social inequality told with the depth of voice that only comes from a writer passionately rooted in place. Like the Cornish tides that fill her life, Carthew is at times roaring, visceral and exclusive, in turn gentle, embracing and inclusive, but always driven by hope and determination." - Raynor Winn
"Haunting and powerful, a book about the sea and the power of belonging, about secrets and words, this is a beautiful and powerful memoir. I read it in one sitting." - Kate Mosse
"By turns marvellous, moving, & mesmerising" - Anita Sethi
"A fierce, urgent memoir by one of our most important writers. Natasha Carthew is a warrior you'd want on your side in almost any battle, but more important, she is a torchbearer. If you want to understand life in rural Britain, look where she casts her light." - Amy-Jane Beer
"This important and beautifully lyrical book asks questions about identity, belonging and the ability of words to transform a life" - The Times
"Beautiful and lyrical, Undercurrent explores the world of rural poverty with both striking honesty and heart. There is no other writer like Carthew" - Mahsuda Snaith
"
Undercurrent is a fierce and different kind of nature writing, where the wildness is within as well as without: the life you're dealt, and how you manage it - survival, resourcefulness, protection, the ferocity and necessity of having an escape-dream, and the discovery of self-expression through creativity. Delivered in wave upon wave of the flotsam and jetsam, light through water, love, chaos, lack and rage, of trauma, abandonment and poverty in a rural, working class life.
An eloquent shouting into the storm, there are quiet coves, where the wild beauty of a 'destination' landscape contrasts with deep and damaging eddies of deprivation. It is also a lifting of the eyes, heart and hope above the horizon, through the life-changing power and importance of literacy, cultural capital and the mobile library, as a means of freedom and opportunity.
It's the paradox of how to love a place you belong to but cannot dwell in (that hurts you) and the need to escape it.
Brace yourself. It left me breathless, and more determined than ever, to be a good and relevant school librarian.
"This is an absolutely brilliant, essential book. I am only halfway through and can already tell it will change my heart and mind" - Lucia Osborne-Crowley
"The most lyrical description of Cornwall I have ever read... highly recommended" - The Tablet
"A proud, defiant account and despite all the bluster and squalls, Carthew is walking fire, fury and sinew, and yet not afraid to show her more vulnerable underbelly. One thing is clear - that this book is also about love. Familial love, love of community, platonic love, unrequited love, love of words, poetry, people and place - but where her words really sing is in her love of Cornwall, its coastlines, laneways, open skies and hidden places - places she wants to survive and thrive" - Caught by the River
"A vivid story of hope, beauty and resilience" - Manx Independent
"Charged with the power of nature, writing and little-heard rural working-class voices, this beautiful memoir is an ode to Cornwall, creativity, and resilience" - Love Reading
"Ferocious . . . A story of humour, resilience and doing things 'with Kernewek pride'" - TLS
"Carthew's fierce and honest memoir of her childhood and teenage years reveals the precarious nature of working-class life in a county where dazzling wealth and natural beauty rub shoulders with dark, grinding poverty. This is an inspiring tale of resilience founded on humour, poetry and love of nature" - BBC Countryfile Magazine
"Carthew is an elegantly lyrical writer" - Independent
"Gripping stuff, Carthew's prose has a startling ferocity" - Telegraph
"Carthew's writing is breath-takingly fierce, smart and tender" - Times Educational Supplement
"Natasha writes with a vivid, imagistic language" - FInancial Times