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y separately published work icon The Bass Rock single work   novel   historical fiction  
Issue Details: First known date: 2020... 2020 The Bass Rock
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'In 1720s Scotland, a priest and his son get lost in the forest, transporting a witch to the coast to stop her from being killed by the village.

'In the sad, slow years after the Second World War, Ruth finds herself the replacement wife to a recent widower and stepmother to his two young boys, installed in a huge house by the sea and haunted by those who have come before.

'Fifty years later, Viv is cataloguing the valuables left in her dead grandmother's seaside home, when she uncovers long-held secrets of the great house.

'Three women, hundreds of years apart, slip into each other's lives in a novel of darkness, violence and madness.' (Publication summary)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Sydney, New South Wales,: Vintage Australia , 2020 .
      image of person or book cover 1388212113556589866.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 368p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 4th February 2020
      ISBN: 9781760894757, 9781760894764
    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Vintage UK ,
      2020 .
      image of person or book cover 5049036926606588336.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 368p.p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 26 March 2020.
      ISBN: 9781911214397 (hbk)
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Pantheon Books ,
      2020 .
      image of person or book cover 6906225208136846753.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 355p.p.
      Edition info: 1st American ed.
      Reprinted: 2021 (paperback)
      Note/s:
      • Published 1 September 2020.
      ISBN: 9781101871881, 1101871881
    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Vintage UK ,
      2021 .
      image of person or book cover 2996098089987972726.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 368p.p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 5 August 2021.
      ISBN: 9781784705497 (pbk), 9781473547391 (ebk)
    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Penguin , 2021 .
      image of person or book cover 8468710039841077194.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 368p.p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 22 April 2021.
      ISBN: 9781761045301
Alternative title: Me olemme susia
Language: Finnish
    • c
      Finland,
      c
      Scandinavia, Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Tammi ,
      2020 .
      image of person or book cover 2928428577788975642.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 484p.p.
      ISBN: 9789520418847

Other Formats

Works about this Work

Stella Prize Goes to British Australian Author Evie Wyld for The Bass Rock — A Gothic Tale of Women and Violence Dee Jefferson , 2021 single work column
— Appears in: ABC News [Online] , April 2021;
'British Australian author Evie Wyld has won the $50,000 Stella Prize for Australian women and non-binary writers for The Bass Rock, a gothic tale spanning 300 years and multiple generations of women.' (Introduction)
‘A True Work of Art’ : Evie Wyld Wins $50,000 Stella Prize for The Bass Rock Rafqa Touma , 2021 single work column
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 22 April 2021;

'The author’s third novel spans three eras to give voice to the ‘collective grief’ of violence against women. In 2021, it couldn’t be more timely.'

NRB Readers’ Top 10 for 2020 2020 single work column
— Appears in: The Newtown Review of Books , December 2020;
Women on the Scottish Coast, at the Whims of Male Violence John Williams , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: The New York Times , 10 September 2020; (p. 4)

'“If I were a woman I would give men a wide berth.”

'A decent man says this in Evie Wyld’s wondrous and disturbing third novel, “The Bass Rock” — and with good reason. So many other men in the book are far less decent, and all too capable of closing even wide berths.' (Introduction)

Angry Women Roslyn Jolly , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , August 2020;

— Review of The Bass Rock Evie Wyld , 2020 single work novel

'‘Her job, she knew, was to stay still and be petted.’ So thinks Ruth, one of the protagonists of Evie Wyld’s new novel The Bass Rock, as she experiences the uninvited sexual attentions of her husband’s first wife’s father while washing up after a Christmas lunch. Instead of staying still, she dares him to continue, confounding the passive role assigned to her. After he retreats she completes the washing up, then goes into the drawing room and carefully snaps the head off an expensive mantelpiece ornament that had been a wedding present. ‘It made a satisfying noise, but nothing loud enough to arouse suspicion next door, and she took the two pieces and wrapped them in a bit of old newsprint from the coal box, placed it on the hearth and stamped on it with the heel of her shoe.’ That night, when she tells her husband what had happened in the kitchen, he refuses to believe her, instead contemptuously labelling her a self-regarding fantasist.' (Introduction)

Evie Wyld : The Bass Rock Fiona Wright , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paeper , 8-14 February 2020;

— Review of The Bass Rock Evie Wyld , 2020 single work novel

'The Bass Rock opens with a memory, or a dream, where six-year-old Vivianne, whose adult self is one of the narrators of the novel proper, discovers a woman’s body in a suitcase, washed up on the beach near her grandmother’s house. The memory is important, not only because it is a formative experience for Vivianne and one that haunts her adult life, but also because it sets up The Bass Rock’s central concern: this is a novel about the centuries-long history of violence committed against women, and the legacies this might leave.' (Introduction)

Bearing Witness Amy Baillieu , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , March no. 419 2020; (p. 27)

— Review of The Bass Rock Evie Wyld , 2020 single work novel
'In a 2013 interview with British literary magazine Structo, Anglo-Australian author Evie Wyld recalls lamenting to a writing tutor that she wanted to write a big action thriller, ‘something with Arnold Schwarzenegger and machine guns and blood and explosions’ but was always writing ‘really quiet little paragraphs about Dads’. These paragraphs evolved into her haunting début novel, After the Fire, A Still Small Voice (2009). Wyld’s Miles Franklin Award-winning second novel, All the Birds, Singing (2013), was followed by a graphic memoir produced in collaboration with Joe Sumner, Everything Is Teeth (2015), detailing childhood summers spent on Wyld’s grandparents’ sugar cane farm and her shark fixation. The Bass Rock, her new novel, may not be a big action thriller either, but it is far from quiet and there is plenty of blood.' (Introduction)
The Bass Rock : Evie Wyld Helen Elliot , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: The Monthly , March no. 164 2020; (p. 65)

— Review of The Bass Rock Evie Wyld , 2020 single work novel
'The Bass Rock looms from the ocean 3 kilometres off Scotland’s East Lothian coast, glistening white with thousands of years of bird droppings and home to the world’s largest gannet population. Ruth, living in a big – too big – coastal house, doesn’t much like the Bass Rock. The other islands in the sea charm her but this misshapen volcanic plug looks to her “like the head of a dreadfully handicapped child”.' (Introduction)
Evie Wyld : The Bass Rock Linda Funnell , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: The Newtown Review of Books , February 2020;

— Review of The Bass Rock Evie Wyld , 2020 single work novel

'Evie Wyld won the Miles Franklin Award for her last novel, All the Birds, Singing. Her latest, set on the coast of Scotland, contains both beauty and violence.' 

Are You a Fox or a Wolf? Ferocious and Brutal Reckonings in The Bass Rock by Evie Wyld Beejay Silcox , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: The Times Literary Supplement , 17 April 2020;

— Review of The Bass Rock Evie Wyld , 2020 single work novel

'In the Firth of Forth in Scotland’s east, a hulking lump of volcanic rock rises steeply from the water, an “igneous intrusion”. Known as Bass Rock, it’s the kind of geological anomaly that inspires anthropomorphizing. It menaces; it waits. In Evie Wyld’s new novel, The Bass Rock, the guano-white monolith has watched on for centuries as women have come to harm, murdered under its imperious shadow. It feels as if some dark power is loose – a vicious bedevilment – but Wyld’s point is far more terrifying: the rock has simply borne witness to ordinary life.' (Introduction)

Women on the Scottish Coast, at the Whims of Male Violence John Williams , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: The New York Times , 10 September 2020; (p. 4)

'“If I were a woman I would give men a wide berth.”

'A decent man says this in Evie Wyld’s wondrous and disturbing third novel, “The Bass Rock” — and with good reason. So many other men in the book are far less decent, and all too capable of closing even wide berths.' (Introduction)

NRB Readers’ Top 10 for 2020 2020 single work column
— Appears in: The Newtown Review of Books , December 2020;
‘A True Work of Art’ : Evie Wyld Wins $50,000 Stella Prize for The Bass Rock Rafqa Touma , 2021 single work column
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 22 April 2021;

'The author’s third novel spans three eras to give voice to the ‘collective grief’ of violence against women. In 2021, it couldn’t be more timely.'

Stella Prize Goes to British Australian Author Evie Wyld for The Bass Rock — A Gothic Tale of Women and Violence Dee Jefferson , 2021 single work column
— Appears in: ABC News [Online] , April 2021;
'British Australian author Evie Wyld has won the $50,000 Stella Prize for Australian women and non-binary writers for The Bass Rock, a gothic tale spanning 300 years and multiple generations of women.' (Introduction)
Last amended 22 Aug 2022 15:27:35
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    Scotland,
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    United Kingdom (UK),
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