My Name is Yip: Shortlisted for the Betty Trask Prize

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I love the compelling narrator , somehow a cross between Charles Dickens's David Copperfield and Charles Portis's Mattie Ross. Unusual because of its main character, Yip Tolroy, a tiny, hairless mute, and because of its nineteenth century American vernacular with its own stylistic oddities, such as seemingly random capitalisation, presumably reflecting the narrative style of its semi-educated but reflective hero. Lastly, what took Yip from such hopelessness to a life of serenity with the wife that was briefly mentioned? The folksy narrative writing style reminded me of Sebastian Barry’s Days Without End, which I liked, and gave it the same kind of old-timely feel but I just never got into the story itself.

I’m a huge lover of historical fiction and the Midwest has to be one of my fave time periods so I enjoyed being thrown back into it. I love the compelling narrator, somehow a cross between Charles Dickens's David Copperfield and Charles Portis's Mattie Ross. I have tried on four separate occasions to read My Name is Yip, but I can not get past Paddy Crewe’s style of writing. As his mother still lies in the blood-slicked sheets, and Yip takes his first gulps of air, his father disappears without trace.Michael Punke, author of The Revenant and Ridgeline * My Name is Yip accelerates into a wild gallop. While I was thoroughly entertained, that is not to say there isn't some substance to be found beneath all the action. It also took me a little while to get used to the fact that the author doesn’t use quotation marks in conversations and the chapters are very very short (which is why there are 90+ chapters). My enjoyment of the book dipped in that section, but then Crewe totally pulls it back together (perhaps a little too neatly and predictably at times) for the last 70 pages. Both an entertaining tale of gold, murder and the impulse for revenge, and a tender coming-of-age story amid the lawlessness of the American frontier.

It was a tough book to read at the beginning because of the grammar, dialect, and spelling but as the story progressed, I got used to it and it because easier. And, as Yip and Dud’s odyssey takes them further into the unknown – via travelling shows, escaped slaves and the greed of gold-hungry men – the pull of home only gets stronger. A mesmeric and rollicking adventure told by a narrator like no other - one who beguiles, moves, delights and also had me so worried for him, I was on the edge of my seat. Thus begins an epic fugitive journey across the American frontier on his trusty horse Gussie, with only Dud for company.

There's no doubt Paddy Crewe has a bright writing future ahead of him, there are some beautiful sentences in this, so much so that I would find myself re-reading lines in admiration. The American Mid West, October 1815, and Yip Tolroy announces his entry into the world in complete silence, with a cord wrapped around his tiny neck. The characters were well-developed, and descriptions of places made you feel like you could see them. What a marvel this novel by Paddy Crewe is, what an unlooked-for firecracker of fury and beauty and rage and hope.