Villager by Tom Cox

Villager Reviews

• 
  Cathy

  This is the first book I’ve read by Tom Cox so, unlike some other reviewers, I’m not familiar with his nonfiction writing and as I usually scroll past images of dogs or cats on Instagram or Twitter I’ve not come across him on social media either. Therefore I didn’t know quite what to expect, a sensation that remained throughout the time I was reading the book.
  
  Villager is a book which almost defies description due to its idiosyncratic style and non-linear structure. The novel ranges over a vast period from the dawn of time to the end of this century. It’s a cocktail of different narratives, in a variety of styles, all of which are connected to the village of Underhill and to an American musician, RJ McKendree who visited the area in the late 1960s and composed music inspired by local folksongs. Some meet him, others inhabit places he did, observe the same views as him or are inspired by his music.
  
  One of the most inventive elements of the book is that Underhill and the surrounding area is presided over by an omniscient narrator, referred to as ‘Me’, whom I took to be the landscape itself. (Have a peek at the cover and you might spot ‘Me’.) ‘Me’ observes the goings-on of the inhabitants, knows all their secrets and reflects on the changes that have been wrought on the landscape by mankind, changes which have often caused it something akin to physical pain. ‘The countryside looks on, bemused at the way it’s been outgrown, bludgeoned, smoothed over, suppressed, raped, waiting for the revenge it will surely enjoy when we are gone.’ At times the landscape fights back. For example, the final nine holes of the golf course that has reduced many a player to swearing at sheep or hurling their golf clubs in the river.  It works the other way as well. As ‘Me’ ruefully observes, ‘I don’t feel great today, and my not-greatness influences those around me. I made a buddleia visibly ill at ease this morning’.
  
  An appreciation of nature and concern for the environment flow through the book. There are wonderful descriptions of the local landscape and wildlife. ‘The last purple streaks of the sun toasted the hilltops and owls made lewd suggestions to one another down in the woods by the river.’  On the subject of flowing, I especially enjoyed the way the author gives the rivers a personality, at times rebellious – ‘One is being a thug out back of the Coop, hissing and swearing at the locals’ – at other times, placid – ‘Today, though, the river was a pussycat. It purred around the boulders beneath his feet’.
  
  The author employs a number of different narrative formats including journals, interactions with a search engine which has developed an unnerving ability to empathise and, most memorably for me, a community message board. The latter allows the author to give full rein to his wicked sense of humour in the often inconsequential chatter of the locals, the acerbic comments of one resident or the contributions of the mysterious Megan Beaker.
  
  My favourite section was the one entitled ‘Papps Wedge’ which features couple, Sally and Bob (not Bob and Sally) whom we first in middle-age and then much later in 2043. It provides a glimpse of a future in which profit and human convenience is prioritised over environmental protection so a new train line ‘smashes through ancient woodland, f**ks over a couple of Elizabethan farmhouses, rapes and pillages the homesteads of hares, otters, stoats and badgers’.  In addition, immersive technology has replaced direct experience for many people. Only Bob and a few like-minded people have rejected its use leaving them isolated in some ways but more in touch with the natural environment.
  
  I’ll confess I found some parts of the book more challenging than others. For instance, many of the musical references in the section ‘Report of Debris’ went over my head. Alternatively if they were pure invention, I couldn’t tell.
  
  Villager is endlessly inventive and jam-packed with thought-provoking ideas. I think it’s the kind of book that would repay re-reading.
• 
  Pilgrim

  I’m deeply suspicious of 5 star ratings but in a very narcissistic way it feels like maybe this book was written just for me and my niche obsessions with 60s music, folklore and the story of specific locations, or homes. The accuracy of this quote cuts maybe a bit close to the bone for me though:
  
  “Would I have listened to this record? Or would I have been suspicious of it for being too popular with cool people, and possibly denied myself the chance to enjoy it until a few years later, when it had become less cool? Ergo: been the same kind of stubborn cultural edgeperson I am now.”
  
  Villager gives the reader a kaleidoscopic trip through different lives (including that of the moor itself) in the fictional moorland village Underhill. As you travel back and forward in time people and events are woven through the chapters in tantalizing snippets that gradually form the story of cult folk musician RJ McKendree, his life, influences and the legacy of his album “Wallflower”.
  
  It’s an ambitious feat to build a realistic world this vividly but I think Underhill and it’s inhabitants do exist and maybe if I find the right door in the right garden wall I can slip through and actually visit.
  
  The story is told with reverence for the natural world, philosophy and wit. So perhaps you are a stubborn cultural edgeperson and you deny yourself a trip through Underhill? That’s your right, but you would be missing a very unique and special book. And maybe that makes me like it more (but at least buy a copy and support the author because we need to keep this man fed and writing).
• 
  Josh Adam

  I went into this book thinking it would be something completely different to what it was, having never read any of Tom Cox's work before, but I absolutely loved what I read. The short stories about a village and its inhabitants were amazing, some were hilarious (accurately depicting the chaos of a village messageboard made me laugh multiple times) and others were downright sad at times (looking at you Papp's Wedge).
  
  The only way I think I could describe this book is by calling it warm and inviting, it tells the stories of people's lives, no matter how normal they were, in such a poetic and enchanting way that I just couldn't stop reading.
• 
  Paul

  The Dartmoor village of Underhill is exactly where you would expect, under a hill. It has a long history of occupation, the stone circle taking it back beyond recorded history. Some of the stories from the landscape have gone forever but others have permeated the local folklore if you know where to look.
  
  The people that have lived in the village over this have their own stories to tell and the narrative switches between different characters from 100 years ago to almost 150 years in the future. They all have a different story to tell of their time spent there, from the music that was created there and became a cult in its own right. There is the story of a doctor seeing the ghost of a woman in a ruined barn and the discovery of a body by two golf man teenagers.
  
  Each of these stories is connected by the main character of the book; the landscape. Its presence is often brooding and sometimes comforting in each of these short vignettes and it feels like it is watching over the inhabitants of the village as they change the land for better or for worse.
  
  The stones will talk, I think, if you give them long enough
  
  I have been a big fan of Tom Cox for ages, so much so that I have even read his golf book, and I really liked this. It took a few days to grow on me, and this, like his non-fiction, is full of quirks and tiny details that make me wonder just where he gets his ideas from. I really liked the underlying rumble of folk horror in the stories, it is there like a satisfying bass line in a favourite track, not enough to scare you, but enough to give a feeling of unease. It is not a conventional novel by any means and is a strong reflection of his interests and passions. I am so glad that I read this, if it wasn’t for Unbound then we may not have seen this as most publishers wouldn’t consider this a commercial book. I still think that his non-fiction writing has an edge over this, but I am very much looking forward to whatever he writes next.
• 
  Greg

  This is really rather special. The tale of a moor, and how it's affected by the people around it, tales of people living near a moor over generations, and the story of an album and how it echoes through years?
  
  "Villager" is all of these and more. It's a remarkable dance through time, a series of stories focused around the village of Underhill, it's inhabitants, and a lost cult folk album.
  
  I can't recommend this highly enough. There's nothing else quite it like around, although there are notes of Alan Garner. Thoroughly readable and immersive. Quite excellent.
• 
  Amy Louise

  3.5 Stars. Tom Cox first came to my attention with his warm and amusing non-fiction books about life with his cats (Under the Paw; Talk to the Tail; The Good, the Bad, and The Furry; and Close Encounters of the Furred Kind). His subsequent moves, firstly into a form of nature writing that blended observations of the natural world with folklore, ghost stories, and amusing interludes from his dad (21st-Century Yokel, Ring the Hill and Notebook) and, later, into short fiction (Help the Witch), demonstrated both his range and his skill as a writer whose work defies easy categorisation.
  
  Villager – Cox’s first novel – appears, on the surface at least, to comprise of a similar miscellany of interests, with the story ranging from the the early parts of the twentieth century through to the not-too-distant future, taking in Cox’s passions for music, nature, and folklore along the way. As a result the novel can, in the early portions at least, feel somewhat disjointed: closer to an interconnected short story collection than a cohesive narrative.
  
  Stick with it, however, and Cox’s tale of a moor, a village, and several generations of its inhabitants, takes its reader on a kaleidoscopic and psychedelic but ultimately rewarding journey that reveals the subtle connections between a landscape and the people who inhabit it, and hints at the consequences that come about as a result of our increasing disconnect with the countryside that we inhabit.
  
  Whilst the narrative structure requires readers to do a little legwork to draw out the connections, the individual voices within the chapters resonate with Cox’s trademark warmth and dry humour. Interspersed with the voice of ‘Me (Now)’, the novels moves between people and time periods to trace the overlapping and interweaving lives of the village of Underhill and its inhabitants, with a central thread following the arrival and impact of a washed-up Californian musician and the folk songs he leaves behind him.
  
  Juxtaposing comedic observations of the mundane and wry pen portraits of village life with moments of insight into everything from human motivation to environmental impact, Cox’s writing is as layered as his narrative and I often found myself moving between laughter one moment and an uneasy melancholy in the next. Whilst some characters resonated with me more than others – I particularly liked the golf-obsessed teenager and the narrative of ‘Me (Now)’ – Villager offers such a varied plethora of voices that the narrative, although reflective and lyrical, never felt bogged down or meandering. Instead, the choral nature helped me to become more immersed into the novel as each new voice gradually reveals a segment of the wider narrative.
  
  Villager is definitely not going to be a novel for everyone. The narrative structure and lyrical writing require some effort on the part of the reader, whilst the gentle pacing – especially at the novel’s start – requires some patience. Those new to Cox’s writing may prefer to start with his (excellent) short story collection, Help the Witch, or with some of the non-fiction writing on his (also excellent) blog to get a feel for his style prior to diving in. For fans of Cox’s work – and readers who enjoy lyrical, genre-defying fiction by writers such as Alan Garner – Villager is an ambitious, unique, and ultimately rewarding read.
  
  NB: This review also appears on my blog at
  https://theshelfofunreadbooks.wordpre... as part of the blog tour for the book and I was part of the crowdfund for the book's publication on Unbound.
• 
  Catherine

  Half wishing I had saved reading this one until our holiday in Cornwall (where we stay in a converted horsebox) as it's a lush wild book and feels as though it should be read immersed in nature (or at least abutting it) rather in a suburban semi!
  Mystical, musical, meandering. A joy to read.
• 
  Rebecca

  A generous 2.5. I know the author doesn’t invite comparisons, but this is nowhere near as good as Help The Witch.
• 
  Paterson Loarn

  Villager is a ramble through the history of a village at the foot of a tor. Hares and wild ponies, a stone circle and a church are on the map. Crows circle the crown of the hill. Mystical voices from distant eras comment on the doings of the living. At times the past of the village orbits eerily close to its present, with startling results. I loved ‘Message Board (2012)’, in which a member of the Beaker tribe who lived in Underhill during the Bronze Age appears to join a WhatsApp chat. Some of the stories have a ‘coming-of-age’ feel. Cox shows how young people fail to appreciate days they will look back on as the best of their lives. Other tales focus on relationships between loners, which scrape the surface of friendship but never reach the core. The passages about rivers are stunning. Cox writes brilliantly about the power of moving water.
  
  The arts are important to the structure of Villager. It opens with a painting and ends with an exploration of the life of a semi-mythical folk singer. The time line is eclectic, with episodes set at various times between 1932 and 2099. The underlying narrative of these episodes is expressed by the tor itself in the sections labelled ‘Me’, which are written in first person and present tense. By personifying the tor and giving it a human voice, Cox expresses some intriguing ideas about time and the earth. ‘I desire love,’ says the tor. ‘I want to see it thrive. But I also want blood.’
  
  In March 21, I reviewed Tom Cox’s previous book, Notebook. I described this collection of jottings as a funny and perceptive examination of the absurdities of everyday life. Cox has moved on from casually observing the world around him to a deeper and darker analysis. Villager is equally as satirical and engaging as Notebook, but there is an increased awareness of ancient wisdom. The author explores links between the experiences of people who lived in Devon thousands of years ago and modern day villagers. The strongest of these links between the generations is the land itself.
  
  I recommend Villager to fans of folk music, lovers of Dartmoor and readers of witty short stories.
• 
  Terri (BooklyMatters)

  
  A gleeful romp, oozing with chaotic energy, magical realism, laugh-out-loud irreverence, dark warnings and so many insights that, if you’re at all like this reader, entire sections will be marked out and dog-eared for re-reading.
  
  In its essence a passionately-held treaty on our tremulous and vulnerable earthly communion, (an appeal to our collective conscience), there’s a playfulness to the writing that cannot help but get inside your head - sardonic, observant, hilarious, but also censorious - worried, genuinely hurting for the wrongs we as humans inflict on each other, on animals, the Earth, and Nature itself - the spirit of Nature, which ultimately is seeking to regain the balance we have tinkered with in ways too terrible to ignore.
  
  Stylistically, the writing is challenging (“truly and beautifully of itself”) and, by design, not for the feint-of-heart. But oh, is it worth the effort!
  
  An outpouring of stories (some vignettes and others longer, connected and more episodic), will take time and effort to make sense of, feeling fragmented initially - until you come across the first flash of insight, a quip or observation so keenly resonant or humorous that the world slows, and nothing becomes more important than your vivid appreciation of the insights unraveling in place in front of you.
  
  A theme of sorts, and what feels like the beginning at least, of an understanding, will, if you stick with it, emerge. This is, when all is said and done, a re-telling of the unfolding of life, in all its forms, in a very particular place but across the “ghosts of time” and all other ethereal boundaries - the “spirit” of a small moored village, Underhill (on the Tor), anthropomorphic in its very nature, telling us its story, - the story of the lives and worlds set down over time; absorbed, digested and roiling in its very essence; now clamoring for attention.
  
  The story-tellers, themselves a collage of odd and eccentric characters, creatures, spirits, and life-forms, - many centering around a folksinger from the sixties who unwittingly captures the essence of the Tor in what will eventually become a cult following of his music,
  
  This book is lush with supporting themes that run the gamut, but perhaps focus most keenly on the march of the “giant black legs” of technology, digitization, social atrophy, environmental catastrophe, corporate greed, ego vs convergence, and the underlying yearning for recognition of the primal connection that ties all of it, all of us and the world we experience, and are, together.
  
  As it absorbs us, we are urged, collectively, to “jump the sun”, to re-absorb the spirit of Nature around us that is, and will become again, our very essence.
  
  The “real and vivid “ world we construct, in our heads (which is all that really matters) and how we “repaint the world”, is up to each of us. All of us.
  
  “To do something too, to not just be here, standing still”.
  
  A brilliant read, with words, ultimately, of hope, this book is highly recommended for those readers who are prepared to invest in its wisdom. In the opinion of this reader, a journey of time not only well-spent but long overdue.
  
  A great big thank you to the author and the publisher for an ARC of this book. All thoughts presented are my own.
  
• 
  Veronika Jordan

  Villager is written from the point of view of a number of different ‘characters’, one of whom is an American folk musician called RJ McKendree who ‘blows through’ in the late sixties and stays a while, writing songs inspired by the people of the village of Underhill and the surrounding countryside. He meets many interesting people while he is there. Years later his iconic album Wallflower, recorded in 1968 and released in 1975 becomes the focus of a cult following.
  
  ‘Two decades later, a couple of teenagers disturb a body on the local golf course. In 2019, a pair of lodgers discover a one-eyed rag doll hidden in the walls of their crumbling and neglected home.’ The book jumps around between the decades and sometimes feels a bit disjointed but stay with it. Towards the end, we hear from the man who was living in the same house in 1932 and he tells us the origin of the one-eyed doll and why it was hidden in the wall.
  
  I put ‘characters’ above in inverted commas because one of them is not a person – it’s the moor itself. It watches what goes on – a jet skier and his sons disturbing the peace and creating a dangerous situation for the people swimming. But the moor remembers what this man did years ago, when he knocked down a pony and left it to die. The moor is privy to secrets no-one else knows. And it remembers the dark, the old dark, before ‘the time of light’.
  
  ‘I honestly can’t tell you how dark it once was around here. I couldn’t even begin to make you understand.’
  
  But my favourite part is about Bob and Sally in 2021 at the start of the pandemic and then 22 years later in 2043. Sally has died and we see what the world might look like in the future.
  
  ‘Everyone knew the state of play now, the chorus of denial of two decades ago had fizzled down to a low hum, and. while plenty was being done to stop the acceleration into the void, the two major obstacles standing in the way – corporate greed, and the illusory drive towards convenience – could not be circumnavigated.’
  
  Visors had been introduced ten years earlier – Bob refused to be fitted – Shropshire is disappearing under water, and Bob, now 73, believes that, ‘the planet as it had been known for the last few thousand years would end soon.’ He has nothing electronic, no phone, no internet, little access to news. He believes he is lucky in that he can afford to make that choice and join the Resistance.
  
  His cousins in Stroud chose not to join the Resistance. Now if anyone is going to join the Resistance it would be the people in Stroud!
  
  There is so much in this book that is prophetic, often funny, sometimes sad, and always makes you think. I frequently had to go back and read a sentence or a paragraph again because if you read too quickly you might miss something important.
  
  It’s not a quick, easy read. The language is lyrical and meandering and sometimes the individual stories appear a tad overlong. This is a book to be savoured when you are not in a rush, when you are sitting in the sunshine, on holiday, and without the daily interruptions of life. It breaks all the rules of traditional storytelling and replaces them with its own.
  
  Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours
• 
  Tanya

  I feel it all getting under the cotton and passing through me -- the sun, the butterflies, the maybugs, the tune of the water, the breeze, the falling light -- and I am the moment and nothing more. [p. 231]

  I helped to crowdfund this book, Cox's first novel, and I feel suitably rewarded by getting to read it! The narrative takes the form of interconnected stories set in a fictional Dartmoor-ish village, Underhill. Each chapter is headed by a title and a date ('Search Engine (2099)'; 'Billywitch (1932)') and the framing voice, the 'Me (Now)' is, well, the hill itself, Underhill Tor. (Echoes of
  The Raven Tower here, with its geological narrator...)

  Anyone who reads Tom Cox's social media will find some elements of Villager familiar: the rush of the rising river outside the window, the conversations with cows, the cold-water swimming, and of course the folk music. If Villager can be said to have a single underlying plot, it's probably the story of folk singer R J McKendree, who first visits the village in the late 1960s and finds inspiration, not least in a local folk song called 'Little Meg', which he hears sung by an old man in the village pub. McKendree will return to Underhill decades later: meanwhile, his recording of 'Little Meg' will become a cult classic, only available as a Hungarian vinyl pressing.

  And of course there's Little Meg herself, who appears (I think) at several points in the novel, including on a village chat group where she talks about her favourite goose. She's been around a while... Villager is fascinating, and fascinated -- by archaeology, folklore, music, merganser ducks, weather, changing skies and the layers of village life. There are echoes between the people living in the same house at different times, and some distinctly science-fictional elements (I especially liked the search engine).

  This is a book that makes me want to return to Devon, to spend days walking the narrow lanes, swimming in the sea, climbing through granite boulders and ruined villages on the moor. It also, more achievably, makes me want to be outside in nature. But oh, to be in Devon in the summertime, with the green hill rising above the beach, and wild strawberries on the dusty verge. (And, all right, the rain.)
• 
  Catherine Mason

  Today I found out that my father had been found dead by his neighbour. It is two weeks until the two year anniversary of my mother's death. I began reading Villager shortly before I went to stay with my dad for a month mid-August to mid-September. I didn't take it with me even though it would have been handy to have had it to read while I was holed up in my dad's bungalow with Covid for most of the first two weeks of my stay. But the time hadn't felt right to finish it. I read the last chapter just now. I hoped there would be something in it that would mean something in view of the sad circumstances of the day, and I was touched by the very last line of the book which seemed to make some sense in regards to both of my parent's lives. "All of it had to happen and the love that went into it was not in vain."
  It also seems to be an apt description of the whole of Tom Cox's rambling and diverse and dense novel Villager. Although I loved some parts of it but not all of it, I feel it deserves reading again. A lot of the earlier chapters would have more resonance after knowledge of the later ones. My least favourite chapter was the golfing one and my favourite Chapters were the hill ones and Message Board and Search Engine. The latter two probably because they were lighter and more humorous than the others, although even they had a touch of darkness. My view of the book and my reaction to it is also probably deeply coloured by my mood this year which has been heavily influenced by my losses. I have found it hard to read much and to concentrate on rich writing such as in Villager. I give it 5 stars because I feel it is a very personal book for Tom and a monument to so many aspects of his life and a true achievement.
• 
  Robert Perry

  In My previous review of Tom Cox’s book ‘Ring the Hill’ I noted that it was pretty much perfect it just needed a map. This book has a map, and as such has already earned it 5 star rating.
  It does have further merits too, I’m not that shallow. Having no prior knowledge of what the books was about or how it was presented it promoted a lot of “aaahhh” moments in my brain when I figured out what was going on. The narrative jumps about a lot (intentionally) and as such I got even more “aaahh” moments when you start to notice the connections between each vignette that makes up the novel.
  It was about three quarters of the way through the book that it dawned on me that it was a sort of “mystery” novel in a way - although I’m sure it was never billed or conceived of in this manner. It made me think about when I watched ‘Pulp Fiction’ for the first time. Almost like a detective noir thing - I feel like I should have been making notes, drawing connections, family trees and definitely timelines to connect it all together. I did not do this but now, having just finished it, I am considering reading again and doing just that. This is in part due to my over-analytical brain and I should note is not a requirement to enjoying this novel. There are also delightful sentiments around creativity and nature, some laugh out load humour and sentences that conjure up subtle smirks (especially if you are familiar with Cox’s previous works and social media quips).
  This is certainly a book that requires you to pay attention and all the better for it. Would definitely recommend and encourage anyone to give it a second read.
  
• 
  Nicola Forster

  I discovered the work of Tom Cox through an article in Writing Magazine and instantly searched for him on Twitter. I instantly loved that he is a cat person like myself and I can’t wait to read his cat books. By a stroke of luck, a kind fan of Tom’s was offering a free signed copy of Villager and I jumped at the chance to be considered- and I was first in line. The book arrived with a bookmark and handwritten instruction to ‘pass it on’ when done. I also donated some cat food to an animal shelter as I hadn’t paid for the book.
  In all honesty I have never read a psychedelic novel before and there were parts that had me laughing and others that I found hard to keep going through because I couldn’t relate to the topic. I wasn’t around in the 60s or 70s. As an 80s baby I’m not sure I’m the target audience but I loved that the main character was the moor. I enjoyed some characters. I liked how the characters intertwined over the years. I particularly enjoyed the message board and the black lab typo haha. Overall it took me a long time to read it because I wasn’t gripped - I felt the length of chapters made me feel like I was reading at a snail pace. You can’t say ‘one more chapter before bed’ because they are so long. For this reason I felt I could only pick up the book when I had plenty of time to read and that time is few and far between. I enjoyed his use of language and his humour is excellent. I’m looking forward to reading his non-fiction books.
• 
  Daisy Lyle

  Really top book with loads of weird atmosphere and an unusual structure, at times almost stream-of-consciousness but never anything less than readable. It has a rich palette of moods, often very funny and romantic but also infused with anger at things which usually boil down to human greed for money, such as environmental destruction and the rural housing crisis. (I'm a native of Devon and his portrayal of the county's more unpleasant features is spot-on.) It's sometimes said of Eric Ravilious that he was a great artist partly because he wasn't afraid to include the barbed wire in his magical landscape paintings, and this is a literary equivalent of that.
  
  The loose weave of the book is also very suitable as the practice of "getting it together in the countryside" (as practiced by folk-rock bands from Traffic on down) often involves a considerable amount of falling apart or at least becoming slightly unravelled. My favourite sections were "Billywitch" and "Message Board", which offer a soft but memorable eerieness that comes in like mist but takes a lot longer to disperse. The quality of writing is high throughout, however. Cox's moor may be fictional but it is very much like Dartmoor, in constant change but always with that underlying seethe of strangeness masquerading as peace and quiet. A must for fans of Phil Rickman and any author attempting to show the British countryside as it really is today.
• 
  Dave Holwill

  Truly remarkable.
  To put all my cards on the table here, I did not really enjoy Help The Witch as much as I've enjoyed Tom's other work and I worried that I would not enjoy this either. I had a terrible feeling I might not like his fiction. However, this is not true, it is just confirmation that I don't like short stories, no matter who writes them.
  Villager is a work of brilliance. Tom has clearly spent a lot of time working up to this, strands of his previous nature writing are evident, as is his deep love of Devon, his adopted home county.
  The narrative leaps from past to future to present in a David Mitchellesque fashion, but with better jokes, and a little more reverence for musical history. Indeed, if you're not right on the money with your knowledge of late '60s counterculture then you'll need to use Google a bit to figure out which of the artists referenced are real and which figments of Tom's vivid imagination.
  Spanning the centuries and with an interconnected cast of misfits, Underhill is a village you'll wish was real, and that you could stay the hell away from.
  It's not often I feel the need to go back and reread a book these days, but after finishing this, I had a niggling urge to go back and read it again with all the things I know now that I didn't at the start.
• 
  Karen Huxtable

  I have read Tom’s non fiction books before and loved his take on life so I was excited to see he had written a novel. I have lived in a small Devon village for most of my life and I was fascinated to read this story.
  
  The book is set around the village and villagers of Underhill. This is a book to savour, the writing is so descriptive and full of imagery, I easily found myself transported to the moor amongst sheep and gorse and the authors nature writing is really evident.
  
  The wit and humour made me laugh out loud, growing up in Devon the people really resonated with me. I loved the very rural villager quotes especially this one where the county rivalry is very apparent .
  
  ‘They asked where he was going and when he answered as honestly and specifically as he could, their only advice was to avoid Somerset because the people there weren’t right‘
  
  Reminders of ghosts of the past like village payphones and outside toilets which again I remember and the characters also. I really enjoyed getting to know them.
  
  Richard, Dick, Joy and how some of the villagers are very suspicious of outsiders as they feel that they may be a threat to their way of life. The author is such a great storyteller that you will be immersed in this book with it’s music, art, landscapes and beautiful and how the tales are cleverly entwined, a great read.
• 
  Hannah

  The simple way to describe the theme of this book is the place art, from music to writing to painting, has in our lives. It connects generations, roots people to places, tells stories, and changes. That's what I narrowed down the main theme to, but a reader will glean many lessons and feelings from Tom's first piece of full-length fiction. That includes a timely commentary on the place modern technologies i.e. screens have in our lives. Tom weaves his unique humor into the pages from beginning to end. A well-read and researched writer, Tom brings his knowledge of folklore, landscapes, music, and history to his work. Whether it be dialogue or internal monologue or a description of settings and events, Villager is sure to keep readers entertained from cover to cover.
  
  Tom Cox has become a household name among my family and friends, and I'm excited to share this new work with other avid readers and kindred spirits. Since I first read 21st Century Yokel several years ago, Tom Cox has influenced my growth as a person and earned a spot on the top of my list of favorite creators. The only negative thing I could say about Tom is he sets the bar a bit too high for aspiring writers like myself. I look forward to spending many more hours with Tom's writing in the future and admiring his knack for choosing words and putting them in the right order.
• 
  Christopher Bergedahl

  Another top class entry by my favourite author of this generation: Tom Cox.
  
  His first fictional novel is both spooky as well as ethereal. I thoroughly enjoy the manner in which the various narrative elements transcend both time and space to eventually form a satisfying, though slightly beyond reach, conclusion. The chapter on RJ McKendree’s drift through 60s Underhill touched me in a way that I struggle to articulate; though perhaps that’s the point of it all?
  
  Elements of the narrative draw inspiration from Tom’s earlier works, I perceive subliminal references to Nice Jumper, Ring the Hill and Help the Witch weaved into the individual storylines.
  
  The individual story arcs don’t so much converge as they dance around one another. An attentive reader will undoubtedly take great satisfaction in connecting all the dots.
  
  I took my time this one, poring through the pages with great care in order to fully immerse myself in Underhill’s other-worldly presence (I consider the village and the tor to be as much a character as any of the humans that have made its environs their home). I would strongly consider that you do the same.
  
  Bravo, Tom. Can’t wait for your next piece of work.
• 
  Gerry Grenfell-Walford

  All of Cox's Hallmark traits are here, quirk and charm and whimsy, and curiosity, shot through with the profound love of the 'deep south west' landscape and fears for it's environmental health.
  Villager is a fantasia, or rather, a one-pot stew, where everything is thrown in together seemingly artlessly, but with surprising connections and subtleties coming out of the elements as they jostle.
  I enjoyed it, though, truth to tell, I did slightly prefer Ring the Hill and 21st Century Yokel for their realism and connection to concrete, physical places you can visit. People that had actually spoken. For me that's more powerful.
  Here Cox wanders off-piste, into the village of Underhill, which is really the Dartmoor he carries in his mind. He's seeking that ever elusive quality, like a lost thread of song always on the edge of memory and always just remaining half-remembered. His skill is that he manages to convince you it's out there too. If you're not careful, he'll have you out looking for it.
  
  ***** Great
  **** Good
  *** Fair
  ** Poor
  * Dire
• 
  Katee

  The time that Tom has spent living and ruminating over, not yet writing, his first full novel has absolutely served him well. This book is a garden -- you see its separate pieces planted with big loamy gaps in between, and then you're carried in and out of time to see the pieces all grow toward and into each other. Because of this interconnectedness of seemingly disparate parts, I recommend picking this book up when you have an afternoon free to really get into it, so you can start to see how it comes together before you put it down for the first time. You'll want to give yourself that. It's a river soak on a lazy afternoon in a forest where the trees are large, dark green, wounded by fence wire, and haunted, and between them looms the tor.
• 
  Staceywh_17

  Although Tom has been the author of many books this is his first foray into fiction.
  
  The world building was astounding and visually descriptive. And I, like so many others (I imagine), would love to take a journey through Underhill.
  
  We meet such an eclectic bunch of characters, each villager having their own tales to tell, keeping the story alive and interesting. Villager is well executed, entertaining and highly immersive.
  
  Tom takes us on an exciting adventure through time and Underhill as we search for a missing folk album, the album which has echoed through the years, gaining cult status.
  
  Many thanks to Random Things Tours for my tour spot.
  
  Rating ⭐⭐⭐💫 (3.5)
• 
  Sue King

  A lyrical book where time is fluid and the land itself is one of the characters. With a strong sense of place and a series of stories that stay with you, it's the sort of read that made me want to go slowly to savor the words and the feelings they evoked. Growing up as I did on a small family farm in the middle of a woods in a place you'd be hard pressed to find on a map - the symbiotic relationship between the land and its people, and that deep sense of history rang so true to me. Full disclosure: I'm a fan of Tom's work and highly recommend his other books. That said, if you don't know Tom's writings, this would be a wonderful introduction.
• 
  Tamasine ChamberlAin

  Villager by Tom Cox is far from your average novel about a Village.
  
  It’s a tale of time and place, interwoven with characters, some you will want to learn a lot more about and some you may not like much, some a little bit naughty and some purposely dull. Sometimes you will feel transported in a time machine that goes nowhere, and sometimes you feel nostalgic for what once was. You will quite possibly picture yourself in this place, as one or maybe all of the characters.
  
  But I have no doubt you will love this journey and it begins with a shock realisation in the first chapter “Me (now)”, that Villager will be very different than any book you’ve ever read, in such an enjoyable way.
• 
  LA Smith

  I confess unashamedly that I am a fan of all Tom Cox’s writing. His voice —or voices, rather— resonate with me, as do his quirky areas of expertise, like folklore, 1960s music, landscape-based meditations, and the intricately intertwined lives of all the people and their place, in this case a West Country village with stories to tell. I savored this book, lingering over passages and reading only a bit at time to make it last almost to the end of the year. I’ll likely read it again in a year or so. It’s splendid.