This is a raw and gritty tale of 19th century America told through the voice of a protagonist who has no voice.

It was fun to see how Crewe imagined it almost 200 years earlier, with all modern manifestations removed. My big criticism of the book is the way it went down the travelling show route with Yip being a mute - I feel it's been done to death and it was a little too obvious. I thought the novel started out a bit slow and dry, and it took me a few chapters to get used to the narrator’s voice.I have tried on four separate occasions to read My Name is Yip, but I can not get past Paddy Crewe’s style of writing. I love the compelling narrator , somehow a cross between Charles Dickens's David Copperfield and Charles Portis's Mattie Ross.

Meanwhile, the doctor went to the tavern and pronounced that the Tolroy boy would only ever be a simpleton. This novel makes quite a few stylistic choices that will for sure, put some readers off of it entirely. There are several moving moments and ruminations on the meaning and nature of life in this brutal society where there is a casualness to the death and violence which seem endemic to it.Rachel Joyce, author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry * Mute but eloquent, Yip comes thrillingly into our midst to unfurl his singular and singing book of revelations. Yip is an incredible character, up there with Owen Meany and Holden Caulfield for sheer unforgettableness. Together, they embark on a journey that thrusts them unwittingly into a world of menace and violence, of lust and revenge. But can Yip get back to Heron’s Creek, claim his gold, avenge his father and be reunited with his mother?