
The Wych Elm
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Narrated by:
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Paul Nugent
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By:
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Tana French
About this listen
Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Wych Elm by Tara Elm, read by Paul Nugent.
For me it all goes back to that night, the dark corroded hinge between before and after, the slipped-in sheet of trick glass that tints everything on one side in its own murky colours and leaves everything on the other luminous and untouchable.
One night changes everything for Toby. A brutal attack leaves him traumatised, unsure even of the person he used to be. He seeks refuge at his uncle's rambling home, the Ivy House, filled with cherished memories of wild-strawberry summers and teenage parties with his cousins.
But not long after Toby's arrival, a discovery is made. A skull, tucked neatly inside the old wych elm in the garden.
As detectives begin to close in, Toby is forced to examine everything he thought he knew about his family, his past, and himself.
A spellbinding standalone from a literary writer who turns the crime genre inside out, The Wych Elm asks what we become, and what we're capable of, if we no longer know who we are.
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Critic reviews
Soul Searching
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Not the usual Tana French
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Perfect holiday novel
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The blurb of Wych Elm promised something similar - alluding to a potential situation similar to The Likeness where the house itself played as an additional rich character.
But as you begin a 22 hour audio book - you really need to start by caring about the protagonist. Empathizing, sympathizing or just intrigued by what might happen to him. Or what they may do to those around them. I disliked the reader and the character from the start. The reader sounded so insipidly weak that the characters confidence in the beginning was intangible and unbelievable. I then didn't care about his attack or what might happen to him afterwards. The prospect of another 19 hours was unbearable. Perhaps I will try and read this book myself, since it has been generally well received by critics - but I cannot listen to Nugent's version.
Deep inside the head of someone I can't care about
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