Paradise - by Ben Tufnell (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A world on the brink of collapse. Dense woods, mountains, a standing stone, a barrow, and a very old house. But if you've only ever known concrete and glass, how do you live in a place like this?

Recruited by a mysterious organisation, Nash thinks things are finally going his way. But when a job goes badly wrong, he is taken to an isolated location to await a decision on his fate.

Paradise is a crumbling cottage deep in a forest; Nash is free to leave the house but must not leave the woods. It is winter, and this wild and remote place is unknowable and terrifying. He attempts to map his surroundings to find a way out, but they resist him, the land seemingly shifting and changing. Moreover, he begins to suspect that his employers' intentions may be much darker than anticipated.

Paradise is the brilliant new novel from Ben Tufnell, an uncategorizable Kafkaesque eco-thriller combining elements of noir, folk horror, and nature writing, addressing the most urgent of contemporary issues.

Forming an unlikely friendship, Nash finally begins to understand the consoling power of the place that has become his home. Brigid is sure of herself and at home in the natural world, while he is urban, lost. But she longs for his world, and he longs for hers.

Now the wheel of the year is turning. As winter gives way to spring Nash's fate has been decided, and they are coming to deliver their verdict.

Review Quotes

"Paradise is a compelling fusion of literary noir with eco-fable--page turning and profound, I loved this book. Tufnell is a tour de force of imaginative power."
--James Miller, author of Lost Boys

"Paradise begins as an engrossing neo-noir before pivoting into something considerably stranger, in a manner that recalls a peculiar array of other works: Ben Wheatley's Kill List, Neil Jordan's The Crying Game, Michael Ende's children's novel Momo. A Kafkaesque end-times parable of acceleration and collapse, violence and repair, it is a resonant page-turner fit for the Capitalocene."
--Seán Padraic Birnie, author of I Would Haunt You If I Could

"A powerful novel of psychogeography set between two landscapes, urban and rural, in a world palpably on the brink of collapse. Febrile with paranoia and alienation, Paradise confronts the crucial, intimate matter of our time: how 'to be' at the end of all things."
--Charlotte Tierney, author of The Cat Bride

"A Kafakaesque maelstrom of a novel, with folk horror lurking at the edges. Tufnell remains a wonderfully strange writer."
--Amy Twigg, author of Spoilt Creatures

"An unsettling novel of juxtapositions and surprises, Paradise moves between city and forest, bringing both to teeming, violent life. Tufnell creates landscapes that work upon us on the deepest level."
--Aliya Whiteley, author of Three Eight One

About the Author

Ben Tufnell is a writer and curator based in London. He has written fiction for many years with publications in Conjunctions, Litro, Lunate, Nightjar Press, Storgy and Structo, amongst others, and was included in Best British Short Stories 2024. He has been longlisted or highly commended for the BBC National Short Story Award, the Sean O'Faolain Short Story Prize, The White Review Short Story Prize, the Disquiet Fiction Prize, and was shortlisted for the Society of Authors' ALCS Tom-Gallon Trust Award for short fiction. His debut novel, The North Shore, was published by Fleet (Little, Brown) in 2023.

Previously a curator at Tate, Tufnell is a founding director of Parafin, an independent gallery. He has published widely on modern and contemporary art, in particular on artforms that engage with ideas of landscape and nature.