A STUNNING STORY SPANNING CENTURIES: THE DEVIL’S HIGHWAY BY GREGORY NORMINTON IS PUBLISHED TODAY

Gregory Norminton’s THE DEVIL’S HIGHWAY, a novel deeply rooted in place, is published today by Fourth Estate in hardback, ebook and audiobook. Gregory read an extract from the dazzling novel at a packed launch at Daunt Books’ in Holland Park last night. The paperback will follow in September 2018.

In December, Robert Macfarlane selected THE DEVIL’S HIGHWAY as his book of the year for Resurgence magazine, calling it ‘a powerful meditation on the damages – and the good – we have wrought, and will wreak, on the living world.’ George Monbiot also commented on its importance in addressing environmental issues, saying, ‘it's brilliant. The best treatment of climate change in fiction I've come across. A powerful, essential novel.’

This weekend The Guardian’s M. John Harrison praised the novel for being ‘satisfyingly Alan Garnereseque…. …. reminiscent of Will Self’s THE BOOK OF DAVE or Russell Hoban’s RIDDLEY WALKER’, and in the TLS Jay Griffiths describes it as ‘profound and powerful, its prose moving to poetry. Gregory Norminton writes in language scraped down to its bleached bones – but how exquisitely he makes those bones sing.’

Set on one Roman road in three time periods over three thousand years, THE DEVIL’S HIGHWAY is a breathtakingly original novel that challenges our dearly held assumptions about civilisation.

An ancient British boy, discovering a terrorist plot, must betray his brother to save his tribe. In the twenty-first century, two people – one traumatised by war, another by divorce – clash over the use and meaning of a landscape. In the distant future, a gang of feral children struggles to reach safety in a broken world. Their stories are linked by one ancient road, the ‘Devil’s Highway’ in the heart of England: the site of human struggles that resemble one another more than they differ.

In March, Gregory will be speaking alongside Rachel Lichtenstein about place in writing at a special event hosted by The Manchester Writing School at Manchester Met and the International Anthony Burgess Foundation.

Visit Gregory’s website here.

Follow Gregory on Twitter here.

Gregory Norminton is a novelist, actor, playwright, and environmental activist, born in 1976. He is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the Manchester Writing School. He has published five novels including SERIOUS THINGS and THE SHIP FOOLS, and two short story collections. Several short stories and dramatisations have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4. His most recent collection, THE GHOST WHO BLED was released by Comma Press last year.

Praise for THE DEVIL’S HIGHWAY

‘Satisfyingly Alan Garnereseque…. …. reminiscent of Will Self’s THE BOOK OF DAVE or Russell Hoban’s RIDDLEY WALKER’ – M. John Harrison, The Guardian

 ‘It's brilliant. The best treatment of climate change in fiction I've come across. A powerful, essential novel.’ – George Monbiot

'A big, ambitious, beautifully written book that examines, with immense sympathy and generosity, one of the greatest of all themes, place, and our complex, fraught relationship with it.' – Neel Mukherjee

‘Norminton's novel is intriguing, a cautionary examination of man's capacity for violence and the effect on the world around him.’ – SciFi Now Magazine

‘It’s a brilliant deep-time meditation on how landscapes hold – and conceal – meanings. The novel’s stories are set across three points in time, but always in the same place (a Roman road – the highway of the title – crossing southern England). It’s a powerful meditation on the damages – and the good – we have wrought, and will wreak, on the living world.’ – Robert Macfarlane, Resurgence & Ecologist, Books of the Year

 ‘THE DEVIL’S HIGHWAY is held together by place, by the persistence and frailty of the natural world, and by the havoc wreaked on it by its human inhabitants. Spanning three civilisations and their conflictual relationship with the world in which they live, the novel is also a deeply human examination of the cruelties people inflict on one another, through war and need, and of the eventual possibility of love, the only defence against the destructive force of fire.’ – Charles Lambert author of Two Dark Tales

‘This is a work of staggering imagination, of unflinching acuity, powerful, poetic and profound. Telling the story of climate breakdown through language breakdown, it magnifies the meaning of loss, portraying a devastated culture without history or literature, whose language is down to its bleached bones and yet – how those bones sing.’ – Jay Griffiths, author of Wild: An Elemental Journey

‘Impressively binds three compelling tales of different times, to one piece of land, with sinews of poetry, history and a viscerally energetic imagination’ – Laline Paull, author of The Bees

‘A striking and dazzlingly poetic meditation on the resonance of place, conflict and kinship. . . . Norminton's skilfully-wrought novel is a memorable and thought-provoking read’ – Liz Jensen, author of The Rapture

4th Estate acquires Gregory Norminton's THE DEVIL'S HIGHWAY

Helen Garnons-Williams at 4th Estate has acquired THE DEVIL'S HIGHWAY by acclaimed novelist Gregory Norminton, from Isobel Dixon at Blake Friedmann. 4th Estate will publish in Spring 2018, and have acquired British Commonwealth rights excluding Canada.

Set on and around the Devil’s Highway – a Roman road that crosses north Surrey and Hampshire – it is a vivid and deftly constructed novel spanning three thousand years and charting the ways in which one place can become many places over time. An ancient British boy, discovering a terrorist plot, must betray his brother to save his tribe. In the twenty-first century, two people – one traumatised by war, another by divorce – clash over the meaning of a landscape. Centuries in the future, with England now a burning desert, a gang of feral children struggles to reach safety in a broken land.

Helen Garnons-Williams says, ‘I acquired Gregory’s first novel, THE SHIP OF FOOLS, for Sceptre 15 years ago, when I was struck by the breadth of his imagination and the freshness of his voice. In the intervening years my admiration for his writing has only grown. We are all thrilled to welcome him to 4th Estate and to be publishing this extraordinarily original, affecting and urgent new novel.’

Gregory Norminton says, ‘I am very excited to be joining 4th Estate, especially with a novel that, for all its scope, is my most personal yet. In THE DEVIL'S HIGHWAY I have returned to the landscape of my youth – I have come home, so to speak, as I have come home, in another sense, to Helen Garnons-Williams, my first editor.’

‘It’s not just the pleasure of this particular author-publisher reunion that gladdens the heart,’ says Isobel Dixon. ‘I know that many will rejoice at Gregory Norminton’s return with this striking new novel. With all its brio and brilliance, its vision and fierceness, THE DEVIL'S HIGHWAY maps an unforgettable journey for character and reader, changing the way you see the world.’

Praise for Gregory Norminton:

‘Norminton’s measured, elegant prose makes beauty and menace sing in perfect harmony … his scaling of the treacherous cliffs of the human heart will take your breath away.’  - Neel Mukherjee, Sunday Telegraph

‘Anything by Gregory Norminton is a pleasure to read.’  - Time Out

‘Norminton is a fine writer, his imagery is often striking, his turn of phrase can be wonderful.’  - John Mackenna, Irish Times

‘Whatever Gregory Norminton turns to next will be worth waiting for.’ - Alastair Mabbott, The Herald

Gregory Norminton trained as an actor, and is the author of four widely-praised novels. His short stories have been published in many journals and anthologies and Comma Press will publish his second collection The Ghost Who Bled in 2017. He teaches Creative Writing and English at Manchester Metropolitan University.