Cover image © Corbis
Lilli and Becca are childhood friends brought together amongst the evocative landscapes of the Somerset Levels. Separated, they become lost to one another as adults. Returning to the Marsh to care for her dying mother, Lilli begins to hear the echoes of other women’s lives, stories that call to her from the ancient tracks beneath the once flooded land.
Becca sings jazz in London’s pubs and dreams of high tides and seafronts. She finds the way back in her songs but grows thin and pale on a diet of cigarettes and cocaine.
Their parting continues to haunt them and Lilli and Becca’s lives remain shrouded in betrayal and loss. As both women struggle to uncover the truth and resolve their troubled past, their paths converge, opening a new track – of friendship, reconciliation and hope.
The Sweet Track costs £8.99 and was published in October 2007.
ISBN: 978-1-873226-93-3
‘Lilli returns to her childhood home to look after her dying mother. She soaks up her mother’s memories of Somerset Marsh, inhales the smells of Supersoft hairspray, traces the picture of her errant father, and tries on her grandmother¹s wedding ring. Then she cycles off to meet Maurice, a freakish character who likes her to urinate on him. It’s a shocking and intriguing opener.’
— Emma Jacobs, in the Financial Times, October 27 2007
This is an unusual and beautifully written book in which the author artfully melds the ancient landscape of the Somerset Levels with the present through the story of two childhood friends.
— Diane Scully, in Somerset Life, August 2008.
Avril Joy was born in Burnham-on-Sea and grew up on the Somerset Levels. She studied History of Art at the University of East Anglia before working as a teacher in London and County Durham. After a period in India, she began to teach at Low Newton women’s prison, on the outskirts of Durham, where she is now Head of Learning and Skills.
In 2003 she was awarded a Northern Promise Award by New Writing North. She lives with her partner and has two children.
Read her interview in the Newcastle Journal (January 26, 2008).
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