My Name Is Yip

Crewe debuts with a rollicking picaresque set in early 19th-century Appalachia. The night Yip Tolroy is born, his father disappears. Yip is raised by his single mother, who runs a general store and treats Yip as something of an afterthought, mainly because the boy grows up mute. He is also bald and short, so people tend to dismiss him as a simpleton. When Yip turns 14, gold is discovered nearby and Yip witnesses firsthand the violence that gold fever can bring. Forced to flee town after killing a man in self-defense, Yip is accompanied by the resourceful Dud Carter, who becomes his guardian angel. The two reluctantly help a man who escaped from slavery on a quest to find his sister, and Yip is abducted by the operator of a traveling show, who makes Yip play the part of a wild boy kept in a cage. After a “short spell,” Yip and Dud are reunited and they return home for a reckoning with their destiny. Yip, who narrates as an adult, is an enthusiastic storyteller, and his relationship with Dud forms the fervent backbone of the episodic narrative. This memorable string of adventures reads like a one-of-a-kind mash-up of Charles Dickens and Cormac McCarthy. Agent: Zoe Waldie, RCW. (May)