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Itâs 1815 in the small town of Heron's Creek, Georgia, when Yip Tolroyââmute, medical anomaly, and social outcastââis 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.
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And then at the age of fifteen, Yipâs 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 Heronâs Creek and the fate that awaits them.
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With its colorful description of people and places, comic backbone, and compelling narrator, My Name Is Yip is a bold adventureââa gripping tale of courage, struggle, hope, and brotherhoodââthat reckons with the seductive pull of the American South and its dark and complex histories.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
June 14, 2022 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781647007119
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9781647007119
- File size: 4459 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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March 21, 2022
Crewe debuts with a rollicking picaresque set in early 19th-century Appalachia. The night Yip Tolroy is born, his father disappears. Yip is raised by his single mother, who runs a general store and treats Yip as something of an afterthought, mainly because the boy grows up mute. He is also bald and short, so people tend to dismiss him as a simpleton. When Yip turns 14, gold is discovered nearby and Yip witnesses firsthand the violence that gold fever can bring. Forced to flee town after killing a man in self-defense, Yip is accompanied by the resourceful Dud Carter, who becomes his guardian angel. The two reluctantly help a man who escaped from slavery on a quest to find his sister, and Yip is abducted by the operator of a traveling show, who makes Yip play the part of a wild boy kept in a cage. After a “short spell,” Yip and Dud are reunited and they return home for a reckoning with their destiny. Yip, who narrates as an adult, is an enthusiastic storyteller, and his relationship with Dud forms the fervent backbone of the episodic narrative. This memorable string of adventures reads like a one-of-a-kind mash-up of Charles Dickens and Cormac McCarthy. Agent: Zoe Waldie, RCW. -
May 15, 2022
Yip Tolroy is different: tiny, hairless, and mute. The inhabitants of Heron's Creek, Georgia, learn to tolerate him, but his is a lonely existence. His father disappeared on the night of his birth, and relations are strained with his stoic mother. When gold is discovered near the small town, treachery and murder result. Teenaged Yip is thrown in with the wily but reckless Dud Carter, an alliance that alters the course of his life. The novel is billed as a western, in the sense that Georgia was on the frontier in the early part of the nineteenth century. But this can more accurately be described as essentially a British literary take on an American-style folk tale, presented from Yip's perspective in a near stream-of-consciousness; his narration is an eccentric hodgepodge of faux backwoods grammar and Dickensian eloquence. Adventure, characterization, and illumination of the human condition are the standouts here, pathos misting over the tale like water on the gold-flecked stones of the town's creek. This is Crewe's debut, and with this distinctive offering, he's proved himself to be an author to watch.COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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