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Travelling in a Strange Land

Winner of the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year
4.05 goodreads logo

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( 1,971 ratings, 355 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Travelling in a Strange Land by David Park is a poignant novel where a father embarks on a solitary journey through snowy landscapes to collect his son from university for Christmas amidst a family crisis. The story explores themes of memory, loss, and the complexities of familial love as the father reflects on past experiences and confronts the uncertainties of the present. It's a beautifully crafted exploration of human resilience and connection in the face of life's challenges.
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Format: Paperback / softback
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

You might enjoy this book if you appreciate powerful storytelling set against the backdrop of a snowy landscape that beautifully explores themes of family, loss, and redemption. It may appeal to you if you are drawn to poignant narratives where a father's journey to his estranged son also becomes a journey through buried emotions and reflections on past mistakes.

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Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

WINNER OF THE KERRY GROUP IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR

‘I loved this delicate, beautifully written novella about fathers and sons’ — David Nicholls

‘One of Ireland's great novelists’ — Roddy Doyle

‘Wrings the heart’ — Bernard MacLaverty

‘A mighty book’ — Frank McGuinness

‘Extraordinary, raw and moving, a chronicle of pain and powerlessness as could be written’ — Lisa McInerney

AN IRISH TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR

The world is shrouded in snow. With transport ground to a halt, Tom must venture out into a transformed and treacherous landscape to collect his son, sick and stranded in student lodgings. But on this solitary drive from Belfast to Sunderland, Tom will be drawn into another journey, one without map or guide, and is forced to chart pathways of family history haunted by memory and clouded in regret.

Travelling in a Strange Land is a work of exquisite loss and transformative grace. It is a novel about fathers and sons, grief, memory, family and love; about the gulfs that lie between us and those we love, and the wrong turns that we take on our way to find them.

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

David Park's Travelling in a Strange Land is celebrated for its breathtaking and emotionally charged narrative centred around parenthood's complexities. The prose, meticulously crafted, delivers an intensely human study of fathers and sons, evoking profound emotions from its readers. A journey of self-discovery and redemption, the novel is described as moving, eloquent, and powerful, leaving a lasting impression. With its skilful blend of lyrical beauty and emotional intelligence, it's considered a mighty and extraordinary work by a master of storytelling.

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781408892756

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 15 November 2018

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 12.0mm

Width: 128.0mm

Height: 196.0mm

Weight: 130g

Pages: 176

About the Author

David Park has written nine previous books including The Big Snow, Swallowing the Sun, The Truth Commissioner, The Light of Amsterdam, which was shortlisted for the 2014 International IMPAC Prize,and, most recently, The Poets' Wives, which was selected as Belfast's Choice for One City One Book 2014. He has won the Authors' Club First Novel Award, the Bass Ireland Arts Award for Literature, the Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize, the American Ireland Fund Literary Award and the University of Ulster's McCrea Literary Award, three times. He has received a Major Individual Artist Award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and been shortlisted for the Irish Novel of the Year Award three times. In 2014 he was longlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award. He lives in County Down, Northern Ireland.

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