CLEAR
A Sunday Times Best Book of 2024
A BBC Radio 2 Book Club Pick
A Vogue Best Book of 2024 So Far
A Waterstones Book You Need to Read in 2024
An American Booksellers’ Indie Next Pick
1843. On a remote Scottish island, Ivar, the sole occupant, leads a life of quiet isolation until the day he finds a man unconscious on the beach below the cliffs. The newcomer is John Ferguson, an impoverished church minister sent to evict Ivar and turn the island into grazing land for sheep. Unaware of the stranger’s intentions, Ivar takes him into his home, and in spite of the two men having no common language, a fragile bond begins to form between them. Meanwhile on the mainland, John’s wife Mary anxiously awaits news of his mission.
Against the rugged backdrop of this faraway spot beyond Shetland, Carys Davies’s intimate drama unfolds with tension and tenderness: a touching and crystalline study of ordinary people buffeted by history and a powerful exploration of the distances and connections between us. Perfectly structured and surprising at every turn, Clear is a marvel of storytelling, an exquisite short novel by a master of the form.
UK ORDERS:
US ORDERS:
Reviews:
‘An astonishing novel.’ —The Scotsman
‘Gripping…like a thriller set against a history lesson rendered fantastically vivid.’—Vogue
‘Wonderfully atmospheric.’—The Sunday Times
‘A marvel of eloquent restraint.’—The Observer
‘Daring and necessary.’—The New York Times
‘A story with the electric hum of a thriller...a slim, masterfully carved gem.’—Evening Standard
‘Superb’—Scott Simon, NPR
’A jewel of a novel...It's hard to overstate how deftly and viscerally Davies's prose conveys this world. We see and hear and smell it, shiver with it.Every scene is imbued with austere beauty...Davies's prose, bone-clean and achingly simple, moves with hymn-like richness...What quietly happens feels astonishing.’—Washington Post
‘An atmospheric marvel...spare and pared-down as Clear is, it overflows with all the fundamentals of humanity: life, love, connection, empathy. Her characters are so vividly alive, so full of feeling, that you can almost hear their hearts pounding away in their wracked and fragile chests.’—iNews
‘[An] epic in miniature. Davies manages to pack more drama and nuance into 150 pages than other authors manage in novels twice that length.’—The Spectator
‘A love letter to the scorching power of language, a power that Davies has long understood. She writes with amazing economy: in a few words she can summon worlds...Davies is a writer of immense talent and deep humanity, capable of balancing devastating audacity with equally devastating restraint’—The Guardian
‘A gem of a novel that shines with tenderness and courage…Sublime.’—Daily Mail
‘In sparse but often gorgeous prose, Clear chronicles the surprising bond that develops between these two men, first through Ivar’s tender ministrations to the injured stranger…a theme of transformation runs through Clear…the profound, life-changing experiences in Clear are almost inconceivably compressed into less than a month. Ms. Davies manages to pack a great deal of power into her compact tale.’—The Wall Street Journal
‘Wonderful…tense and tender, I absolutely loved it.’—Scottish Field
‘Mustering a cast of highly individual characters, Davies’s idiosyncratic novel brilliantly explores a forgotten corner of history.’—Mail on Sunday
‘An exquisitely told story of the coming together of souls in a remote location...sublime.’—Prima Magazine
‘Novels this unassuming, surprising and profound are special indeed.’—Claire Allfree, Tortoise Media
‘Tender, riveting and inventive is Clear, the newest offering and masterpiece from the brilliant Carys Davies. It will take your breath away.’—Sarah Jessica Parker
‘I adored this book.’—Zoe Ball, BBC Radio 2 Book Club
‘Intense...a very atmospheric and moving novel.’—RTE
‘The magic is in Davies’s handling of her material. She packs a huge amount in…and never says more than is needed…To deliver an epic story in miniature like this–in fewer than 150 pages–is an exceptional achievement.’—The Critic
‘A gem of a novel…, a perfectly pitched tale of human connection set at the intersection of two of Scotland’s greatest historic social upheavals… Davies neatly reveals the dilemmas facing each of her protagonists in prose that’s lucid and faultlessly paced…Clear is something to savour.’—New Zealand Herald
‘Beautifully told…By its end, Davies’s evocation of a great disruption in the lives of her characters has proved as cataclysmic as the religious breakaway it springs from.’—The Herald
‘Beautifully written, literary in style but also with an Edgar Allen-Poe-esque inbuilt pacemaker that makes the experience of reading this slim novel feel as tense as a thriller.’—Edel Coffey, The Irish Times
‘The sheer beauty of Clear—with its perfect sentences, its austere tenderness, and its quiet sense of disquiet—feels timeless. In fact, not since Silas Marner had I encountered such a poignant, profound depiction of both solitude and connection. Carys Davies has written a masterful, discreetly sublime book.’—Hernan Diaz, author of Trust and In the Distance
‘Clear is a compact, taut and brilliant novel with an ingenious premise: one man is sent to evict another from his land, but suddenly requires the second man’s aid. Everything gets more complicated from there. The book is about belonging, a dying language, secrets, and a pistol in a box. I loved every page.’—Anthony Doerr, author of All the Light We Cannot See and Cloud Cuckoo Land
‘Davies has an innate sense of how drama and tension interact with each other...Clear is the story of remarkable people seeking to do their best to understand the intricacies of each other’s worlds. Amid the barbarity of mass evictions, with all their modern resonances, Davies ultimately offers us a story that is hopeful and humane.’—Sarah Gilmartin, The Irish Times
‘A wonderfully humane and moving depiction of loneliness and the connections forged between strangers that transcend all barriers, even language.’ —Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures
‘With Clear, Carys Davies has again done brilliantly what she does best - saying most by saying least. She has the rare gift of eloquent brevity — Clear is astute, moving, unexpected.’—Penelope Lively, author of Moon Tiger
‘An exquisite, hopeful masterpiece about people who find their hidden selves in new, far-flung places of seclusion and isolation, and the scorching power of words, even when we do not know them... Magical and humane, Clear is a celebration of love and courage, and absolutely beautiful...It will be my favourite book of 2024 and probably many more years to come.’—Rachel Joyce, author of Miss Benson's Beetle and The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
‘A lucid and stylish prose writer, Davies is excellent at revealing characters through the language they use and through the gestures and tonal shifts that betray their weaknesses, their prejudices and hollow sentiments...what Clear asks of us in its final pages is a leap of faith more usual in fables and fairy tales – there is also something gratifying in the suggestion, however unlikely, that love, even love of the most improbable kind, can still blossom in a world run by men like Lowrie and Strachan.’—John Burnside, Times Literary Supplement
‘Carys Davies is an author we have come to trust implicitly, her brief but deeply satisfying novels West and Mission House are firm Daunt favourites...Marvellously understated and with a surprising sting in the tale, Clear is a practically perfect short novel.’—Daunt Books
‘A wonderful example of an apparently small and contained story that has a huge heart and universal themes...Davies writes with a wonderful, poetic clarity and a poet’s love of language, the specificity of her words bringing the world and its characters to life vividly on the page…it has an emotional resonance that will live long in the heart of the reader.’—Big Issue
‘[A] great, sturdy piece of writing, from a writer who deserves a lot more attention, who has been steadily creating terrific novels and short stories for years, and Clear is as good a place as any to hop on board.’—Bookmunch
‘Her best novel yet...incredible..one of my favourite books of the year so far, easily’—Simon Savidge, SavidgeReads
‘Spare and beautiful…A concise and haunting novel of souls anchored to the consequences of willfully circumscribed lives.’—Booklist, starred review
‘Historical fact can often lack tangible emotion, but here Davies fills in great swathes of it with the most minimalist of brush-strokes. What she has produced is an atmospheric marvel, because as spare and pared-down as Clear is, it overflows with all the fundamentals of humanity: life, love, connection, empathy. Her characters are so vividly alive, so full of feeling that you can almost hear their hearts pounding.’—i Newspaper
‘Intense...lyrical...heart-rending...not a spare word.’—The Books Programme, BBC Radio Shetland
‘A minister’s conscience is tested in the perceptive and beautiful latest from Davies… As the weeks pass, the reader wonders if John will finally tell Ivar why he’s there, whether the gun will ever go off, and how Mary’s impending arrival will affect the two men. Moreover, each page blooms with wondrous descriptions of the untamed highlands…This is divine.’—Publishers Weekly, starred review
‘A lyrical exploration of the landscape, of loneliness, and of human connection...A perfectly crafted novel.’—Historical Novel Society Editor's Choice
‘A narrative of such intensity that the reader's desire is to finish the book at a sitting.’—Bernard MacLaverty, author of Grace Notes and Midwinter Break
‘This intriguing and inventive story escorts the reader to an unexpectedly joyous ending that hints at our contemporary interest in new ideas of what a family might be. The writing style is one of clarity and reserved sensibility punctuated with an end-game needle jab. Not to be missed.’—Annie Proulx, author of Barkskins
‘Clear is a love letter to a vanished way of life, to a landscape, and to human relationships. Captivating, tender, and satisfying, this is a novel to be savoured.’—Claire Fuller, author of Bitter Orange and Unsettled Ground
‘Fantastic...I urge you all to read it.’—Fiona Mozley
‘While a lesser author might allow their characters to be terminally lashed by [these] historical travesties, Davies infuses John, Mary, and Ivar with refreshingly fantastical levels of creativity and grace, which helps them find a startling new way to avert disaster. A deft and graceful yarn about language, love, and rebellion against the inhumane forces of history.’—Kirkus starred review
‘Clear is so true and immediate, any reader will be left with a sense memory of this landscape and these people. The story is original, captivating and lasting. Exquisite stuff.’—Caoilinn Hughes, author of The WIld Laughter and Orchid & The Wasp
‘Another miniaturist gem by Carys Davies, in which she excels as both portrait and landscape painter.’— Chloe Aridjis, author of Book of Clouds and Sea Monsters
‘Carys Davies’ great gift is believing that her characters, whether they know it or not, have in them the strength to answer back against circumstances that would annihilate them. The circumstances here, devised by the merciless rich and powerful, are the Clearances. Ivar, a remaining islander his lord wants rid of, has in his own almost extinct tongue the word liki whose meaning is: “When the thing is at the very start of what it will become.” What starts as his old life ends under duress, is indeed a new becoming.’—David Constantine