The remarkable and totally unique Tom Cox writes about the people, the animals and the landscape around him. Not unusual subjects, perhaps – what makes his writing different is how he sees things. Take a literary walk with Tom and you will be whisked from friends to fossils, from ancient crumbling Dorset cottages to the vast views from Golden Cap, from car boot sales and old record shops to the folklore of the West Country.
If you tried to find a link between golf, vintage vinyl, cats and books that explore a beguiling blend of dark myth, history, landscape, wildlife and strange, inexplicable happenings, you might be forgiven for throwing up your hands in total bafflement.
This is the mysterious world of Tom Cox – cat-lover, former professional golfing journalist, one-time rock critic for The Guardian, keen walker, a man with an an eye and an ear for the quirky and eccentric – and the unheard voices of the landscape. He is the antithesis of the short-attention-span writer. He doesn’t use text speak, trendy abbreviations or any of the life’s-too-short-to-actually-read-something scraps of tik-tokery or instagrammery that pass for writing these days.
Now living in West Bay, after years of rented homes and peripatetic wanderings, Tom will be at Bridport Literary Festival on Saturday 14th November, talking about his latest novel, Everything Will Swallow You, and his new collection of short stories, Curious Events Lately Occurring In This Neighbourhood.
The principal characters in Everything Will Swallow You are Eric, an eccentric dealer in old vinyl, Carl, a deep thinker and knitter who may or may not be a dog, but definitely came from the sea, and their friends, including some-time stand-up Mel and the occasionally levitating Penny.
It is a magical, seductive paean to friendship and the joy of taking life at a different pace.
tom-cox.com
