Highway Cottage (Paperback)

Ralf Webb

ISBN 10: 1802068929 / ISBN 13: 9781802068924

Published by Penguin Books Ltd, 2025

About this Item

Paperback. A dreamlike, unsettling portrait of a riverside village in the heart of rural EnglandHighway Cottage weaves the story of a strange homecoming. A young poet travels to the heart of the English countryside - back to the West Country village where he grew up. Descending into the valley where the small riverside community still resides, he finds himself within a dreamlike landscape, peopled by uncanny figures- drone operators and hunters; half-familiar friends; local historians, and braying councillors trying desperately to oust a community of Travellers. Hovering between reality and folklore, the locale is at once idyllic and in decay; the visitor is both unsettled and soothed by it. Slowly, we start to sense that both villagers and poet might be under threat - not just from the future, but from the past.This book-length sequence of poems represents a ground-breaking artistic achievement by acclaimed poet Ralf Webb. Blending the eerie musicality of children's rhymes with echoes of traditional balladry and free verse, the collection swells to an extraordinary chorus. With great clarity and affection, but not a trace of sentimentality, Webb conjures a precise vision of a rural community, surfacing the deep and urgent tensions - personal, political, and environmental - that run through Britain today. The result is a unique portrait of contemporary country life, enchanting and unnerving in equal measure. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9781802068924

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Highway Cottage (Paperback)
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
• Publication Date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1802068929
• ISBN 13: 9781802068924
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

Following his Forward-prize shortlisted Rotten Days in Late Summer, Ralf Webb's breathtaking second poetry collection summons the West Country of his youth, a place where the real and the magical, folklore and modernity, life and death, collide‘Ralf Webb is an ethnographer of the present. He is interested in everyday life in the extreme’ Peter GizziHighway Cottage weaves the story of a strange homecoming. A young poet travels to the heart of the English countryside – back to the West Country village where he grew up. Descending into the valley where the small riverside community still resides, he finds himself within a dreamlike landscape, peopled by uncanny figures: drone operators and hunters; half-familiar friends; local historians, and braying councillors trying desperately to oust a community of Travellers. Hovering between reality and folklore, the locale is at once idyllic and in decay; the visitor is both unsettled and soothed by it. Slowly, we start to sense that both villagers and poet might be under threat – not just from the future, but from the past. This book-length sequence of poems represents a ground-breaking artistic achievement by acclaimed poet Ralf Webb. Blending the eerie musicality of children’s rhymes with echoes of traditional balladry and free verse, the collection swells to an extraordinary chorus. With great clarity and affection, but not a trace of sentimentality, Webb conjures a precise vision of a rural community, surfacing the deep and urgent tensions – personal, political, and environmental – that run through Britain today. The result is a unique portrait of contemporary country life, enchanting and unnerving in equal measure.