Where the Serpent Lives, Little, Brown, £12.99
"An intensely readeable parable of love and fear." Daily Mail ***
"A journey of discovery, stylishly told." Sunday Express
"A rich, playful style that fizzles with sensory detail, an evocative journey from urban paralysis to near-mythical Bengal’. Sunday Business Post, Ireland
"A novel you will not lightly forget. Only Emily Brontë has embraced Padel's radical and sympathetic inclusiveness of creaturely life." Guardian
'The prose glitters on the page in this story of a woman's journey of rediscovery to the jungles of India, the land where she grew up.' Vogue
"A gripping investigation of love and terror." Andrew O'Hagan
"Evocative depictions of life in the fast-degrading forests of India." Independent
£12.99 in bookshops. Or buy it on Amazon, http://www.amazon.co.uk/Where-Serpent-Lives-Ruth-Padel/dp/1408702029/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265286407&sr=1-1
WHERE THE SERPENT LIVES
"A novel you will not lightly forget, a quest for origins and self-discovery. The power and delicacy of Eros are displaced into the empathic gaze of the narrator towards the creaturely world. Only Emily Brontë, to whom nature was "an inexplicable problem, existing on a principle of destruction", has embraced Padel's radical and sympathetic inclusiveness of creaturely life." Guardian
"At the novel's centre is Rosamund, trapped in a "Gorgon spell" of inaction, unable to confront her husband, reach her son, or help herself. The novel spans a single, life-altering year, splicing Rosamund's story with those of her friend Irena, Irena's husband Richard, a snake expert in India, and Anka, a Croatian singer. Padel's poet's eye lights on the way a fox's coat "shines like conkers, fresh-split;" her sense of rhythm has her switching effortlessly between locations and perspectives. An intensely readeable parable of love and fear." Daily Mail
"The sexy husband is a frightful and fascinating creation" Times
"A rich, playful style that fizzles with sensory detail. It succeeds as an experimental novel, an evocative, lushly realised journey from urban paralysis to the freedom of near-mythical Bengal’. Sunday Business Post, Ireland
"Such is the author’s fascination with her subject that I almost began to find snakes beautiful. The snake of the title may refer to the childhood home, the unfaithful husband, or indeed the very essence of the individual within all of us. This is a journey of discovery, stylishly told." Sunday Express ****
"Evocative depictions of life in the fast-degrading forests of India. Padel has a real feel for nature but is not just a nature-lover of the traditional kind. She paints an almost apocalyptic picture of the ways in which the world's wild animals are being endangered not only by the greed of criminals but also by the peasant's desperate search for sustenance in economies interested only in development." Independent
'The prose glitters on the page in this story of a woman's journey of rediscovery to the jungles of India, the land where she grew up.' Vogue
" I didn't want to stop reading once I'd started, mainly because of Padel's fiercely brilliant way of noticing. She has a great sense of myth and an exquisite way of telling a story. From the wilds of Buxa Forest to little interiors of Kilburn, her first novel seeks to classify the power of living things. Indeed, they all have life and not a few of them have venom.’ Andrew O’ Hagan
"A novel combining a deal of information and observation. Her brisk intelligence darts through the narrative as quickly as a serpent’. Irish Times
"Padel is a talented wordsmith and observer of the natural world" The Lady
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