The Ghost Lake
‘Remarkable’OBSERVER
‘Deeply profound… this is no ordinary memoir’ THE TIMES
‘Astounding’ ADAM FARRER
‘Brave and luminous’ SARAH LANGFORD
‘Mesmerising’ POLLY ATKIN
‘Beautifully written’ YORKSHIRE POST
‘Steadfastly honest’ GEOGRAPHICAL
A memoir of grief, nature and ancestry in rural Yorkshire.
I am setting out on a pilgrimage through an ancient landscape.
I will begin at my daughter’s grave.
Paleolake Flixton is an extinct lake in North Yorkshire. Human occupation of the site dates back thousands of years to prehistoric times. Over the millennia, the vast lake disappeared, turning to wetland and peaty fields. Today all that is left of it is a watermark.
Wendy Pratt brings the reader on a pilgrimage around the ghost lake, to locations that have acted as journey markers in her own life. While traversing forests and fenland, she reflects on the process of finding belonging in nature as a woman who exists in a series of liminal spaces – as a working-class writer, an infertile woman in a fertile world and a bereaved mother in a society focused on children.
An early draft of The Ghost Lake was longlisted for the 2021 Nan Shepherd Prize.
‘In this lyric memoir, award-winning poet Pratt explores the landscape of the Yorkshire Moors, and the ancient lost lake of Flixton, weaving together nature writing with an exploration of grief, belonging and the lives of rural working-class people. THE BOOKSELLER
‘There are some autobiographical writers who speak of utilising nature’s healing properties to overcome life challenges without fully acknowledging the role of luck in their trajectories. Not infrequently these writers become cultural spokespeople for or representatives of a demographic that they are actually no longer a part of, leaving those who are still grappling with their plights feeling as though it’s a personal failing that they can’t make their way out the same mires. This is a very different sort of book, a steadfastly honest one that views nature as a refuge rather than a cure. Many should find solace here. And others will simply gain pleasure from the descriptions of the archaeological finds unearthed from Yorkshire’s rich black peaty soils’GEOGRAPHICAL
'Remarkable' OBSERVER -
'Deeply profound… this is no ordinary memoir' THE TIMES -
'Wendy Pratt has created a shimmering, liminal space of loss that lifts us up and carries us with such tenderness and beauty that we come out the other side transformed' VICTORIA BENNETT, ALL MY WILD MOTHERS -
'A fascinating, haunting pilgrimage through a personal and collective past… a moving exploration through the ages, excavating clues as to what it means to be alive, to be human, to belong' JADE ANGELES FITTON, HERMIT -
'A powerful exploration of loss, place, connection and self, every page running rich with poetic detail. I devoured it slowly, wanting to savour every word' ADAM FARRER, COLD FISH SOUP -
'Both intimate and universal, Wendy Pratt’s brave and luminous memoir reminds us of the healing power of landscape to connect us not just to the ancient people who once lived on the land we now call home, but also to ourselves' SARAH LANGFORD, ROOTED -
'From the tender rituals of caring for her daughter’s grave to her thoughtful exploration of nearby burial chambers, Wendy Pratt interlaces the strands of her life to form a moving memoir of finding belonging. The Ghost Lake invokes the generative power of setting your own creative path through life and illustrates the importance of attuning to nature' SALLY HUBAND, SEA BEAN -
”'A mesmerising and deeply sensory lyric memoir that will carry you with it as it journeys across and into the archive of the landscape, unearthing treasures in the debris of grief, difference and loss” - POLLY ATKIN, SOME OF US JUST FALL
”'Wendy Pratt uses her connection to her beloved Yorkshire landscape to travel back and forward in time, examining how we can honour our ways of thinking instead of being afraid of them, and how a self can be lost and found again” - KIM MOORE, ALL THE MEN I NEVER MARRIED
'Beautifully written, haunting and deeply affecting… will resonate with readers in different ways' YORKSHIRE POST -