Treacle Walker

By Alan Garner

Shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize

An extraordinary, “playful, moving, and wholly remarkable” (The Guardian) coming-of-age novel filled with myth and magic from one of England's greatest living writers.

An introspective young boy, Joseph Coppock is trying to make sense of the world. Living alone in an old house, he spends his time reading comic books, collecting birds’ eggs, and playing with marbles. When one day a rag-and-bone man called Treacle Walker appears on a horse and cart, offering a cure-all medicine, a mysterious friendship develops and the young boy is introduced to a world beyond his wildest imagination.

Luminous, evocative, and sparely told, Treacle Walker is a stunning fusion of myth, folklore, and the stories we tell ourselves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scribner
• Release date: Dec 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9781668025536

Alan Garner

Alan Garner was born and still lives in Cheshire, an area which has had a profound effect on his writing and provided the seed of many ideas worked out in his books. His fourth book, ‘The Owl Service’ brought Alan Garner to everyone’s attention. It won two important literary prizes – The Guardian Award and the Carnegie Medal – and was made into a serial by Granada Television. It has established itself as a classic and Alan Garner as a writer of great distinction.

Book preview

I

‘Ragbone! Ragbone! Any rags! Pots for rags! Donkey stone!’

Joe looked up from his comic and lifted his eye patch. Noony rattled past the house and the smoke from her engine blew across the yard. It was midday. The sky shone.

‘Ragbone! Ragbone! Any rags! Pots for rags! Donkey stone!’

Quick, Joe. Now, Joe.

Joe pulled the patch down, got off his mattress on the top of the chimney cupboard and stood at the big window.

The last of Noony’s smoke curled through the valley and along the brook. He could see no one in Barn Croft or Pool Field or Big Meadow or on the track between the top and bottom gates; and trees hid the way up from there to the heath. He went back to bed.

‘Ragbone! Ragbone! Any rags! Pots for rags! Donkey stone!’

The voice was below the window. He climbed down again.

There was a white pony in the yard. It was harnessed to a cart, a flat cart, with a wooden chest on it. A man was sitting at a front corner of the cart, holding the reins. His face was creased. He wore a long coat and a floppy high-crowned hat, with hair straggling beneath, and a leather bag was slung from his shoulder across his hip.

‘Ragbone! Ragbone! Any rags! Pots for rags! Donkey stone!’ He looked up at Joe.

Joe opened the window. Even from there he saw the eyes. They were green violet.

‘What do you want?’ he said.

‘Rag and bone,’ said the man. ‘And you shall have pot and stone. That’s fair. Or isn’t it?’

‘Wait on,’ said Joe. ‘I’m coming.’ He rummaged in the cupboard and found an old pair of pyjamas. He ran downstairs to his museum and raised the glass lid. There was his collection of birds’ eggs and a lamb’s shoulder blade he had picked from a mole hill by the railway embankment. He took the shoulder blade, opened the door and went into the yard.

‘I’ve got these.’

‘Come aboard, buccaneer,’ said the man.

Joe put his foot on a wheel spoke and climbed onto the cart. The man made room for him at the corner, and Joe sat down. He turned his face away.

‘What is wrong?’ said the man.

‘You smell.’

‘Not I, Joseph Coppock,’ said the man. ‘You smell that I stink. Let words be nice.’

‘How do you know my name?’ said Joe.

‘ More know Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows,’ said the man. ‘Or don’t they?’

Joe jumped from the cart.

‘Cob you! Cob you, then!’

‘Master Coppock. Come up.’

Joe climbed back, but sat further along the cart.

‘What have you brought to market?’ The man took the pyjamas. ‘These are yours? Your own? You have worn them?’

‘They’ve got holes in.’

The man put the pyjamas to his face and sniffed.

‘They’ve not been washed,’ said Joe.

‘And what bone?’

‘I found this down the banking, near the brook. It’s a lamb.’

‘Well cleaned, scapulimancer.’

‘Are you daft?’ said Joe.

‘ As Dick’s hatband, as they used to say. Open the chest. And choose.’

Joe got up and went to the chest. He lifted the lid.

‘Heck!’

The chest was full. Bedded in layers of silk, there were cups, saucers, platters, jugs, big and small: coloured, plain, simple, silvered, gilded, twisted; scenes of dancing, scenes of killing; ships, oceans, seas; beasts, birds, fishes, whales, monsters, houses, castles, mansions, halls; cherubs, satyrs, nymphs; mountains, rivers, forests, lakes, fields and clouds and skies.

‘Choose,’ said the man. ‘One.’

‘They’re worth loads, this lot,’ said Joe.

‘Choose.’

‘More than jamas and bones.’

‘Choose.’

Joe took out every piece and laid them on the cart.

‘This,’ said Joe.

‘That is the least,’ said the man.

‘It’s the bestest.’

Joe held a round jar no bigger than his hand.

‘It is small,’ said the man.

‘I don’t care.’

‘Of little price.’

‘I don’t care. It’s grand. Grand as owt.’

The jar was white, glazed, and chipped. Under the rim was painted in blue: ‘Poor Mans Friend’, and beneath, ‘price 1/1 ½’. On the other side was: ‘Prepared only by Beach & Barnicott, SUCCESSORS TO THE LATE Dr. Roberts, Bridport.’

‘It’s old,’ said Joe.

‘As some would reckon.’

The man put everything back in the chest and closed the lid. There was an oval brass plate in the middle of the lid, and on it Joe saw a name engraved in flowing letters.

‘Blinking heck!’

‘What is wrong?’ said the man.

‘My name! That’s my name! My own name! There! And Real Writing! See at it!’

‘At this time all is yours. You have chosen. Next, you shall have this.’

Reviews for Treacle Walker

[carltonc_5 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a really dense read for such a short book and I will have missed many of its allusions, even though being British and of a certain age I had familiarity with many. The language is mythic, timeless, and playful.I have only read Garner’s early books for children about forty to fifty years ago, and I suspect that readers who have followed his subsequent books will find much more to enjoy.But overall the book didn’t “work” for me as it was too immersed in Garner’s specific background, and I was spending time trying to fathom meaning, rather than immersing myself in the storytelling.

[eyejaybee · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

As a primary school pupil I read and reread Alan Garner’s book Elidor, in which a group of children from a disadvantaged area of Manchester find themselves transported into another world. I was fascinated by it and loved the way that the author conveyed the strangeness of the child protagonists’ new surroundings.I was eager, therefore, to read this new novel from Garner, now well into his eighties, especially after reading the gushing reviews that proliferated across the press after the book was longlisted for last year’s Booker Prize. Well, I seem never to learn. Once again, I have allowed rampant expectation to lead to crushing disappointment.I found the book utterly impenetrable, and the only positive aspect I can offer is that it was mercifully short, coming in at around 150 well-spaced pages. Still not short enough for my taste – I would have preferred 150 fewer pages, which would have enabled me to devote my valuable reading time to something more rewarding.

[castlelass · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is an odd little book. Treacle Walker is a rag and bone man. He appears on a horse-drawn cart and interacts with a young man, Joseph Coppock, who lives near a bog. It reads like an allegory and is filled with symbolism. The language is playful, inventive, and occasionally old-fashioned. The author employs a series of magical realist elements that tell a fragmented story, leaving much to the reader to figure out what is going on. Time is a major theme. On first read, it is apparent that an understanding of British folklore is necessary to fully enjoy it. It is a short book, so I researched and re-read it to better comprehended the symbolism. I think it will appeal more to those already familiar with the works of Alan Garner.

[j.s.watts · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A mythical, multilayered tale of childhood and mystery.

[al9g · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was an ARC I received in exchange for a review. Joseph Coppock is a young man with a small, well defined world: he collects birds eggs for his museum, marbles, and reads comic books. All that changes when he meets Treacle Walker, a rag man, and maybe something more. When Walker lets Joe exchange items for something from his cabinet, Joe's world changes forever. What is the difference betwen sight and seeing? How do we know a dream from reality? Are we a dream that just believes we are real? The book is based on ancient folklore and the belief that magic is everywhere, changing our perspectives and changing our realities, or at least what we perceive them to be. Do we truly live in one dimension, or can we move from one to another. Is time linear or fluid? Garner's writing style is wonderful, lyrical, and just short of poetry. But because of the our modern context and language this book can be difficult to read and even having read it, I'm not sure I really understood everything in it. I took two messages from it: be careful what you ask for, you might get it, and everything changes, with time, with perspective and with our own personal growth.

[jennybeast · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Weird little bite of a book that is basically an infinity loop of early British folklore imagery chasing itself through mirrors and time. It's well done. It's not my cup of tea. It's not awful, but also why did I even bother? I should know better than to think I would enjoy this. I find literary fiction annoying. Advanced Reader's Copy provided by Edelweiss.

[spaceowl_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Find myself agreeing with SChant a bit. Incomprehensible rambling from a once great author which at least has the decency to go after 150 or so pages. Not my thing at all.

[schant-1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Terribly disappointing after the wonder and charm of his earlier works. This is like an old bloke in the corner muttering gibberish about "the good old days" - dull, pointless and somehow pitiful.