The Adept — Tom Proverbs Garbett
ISBN: 9781788648721
£9.99
In a cold, hard city, Chresta and Eran are searching…
Interrogating their story in lyric poetry, The Adept examines the frequent disconnect between urbanites living side by side and the dangerous power relations in unorthodox belief systems — colloquially, cults and the cult-like. Our protagonists wrestle with their need for engagement in a world of increasing isolation via home offices and online fora. With the metaverse just around the corner, Chresta and Eran encounter callous users preying on the disenfranchised alongside, potentially, offerings of something profound — a sense of belonging in an increasingly fragmented world.
Experimenting with character and form, The Adept uses vignette and imagery of the day-to-day to beautifully capture paradoxes at the heart of modern life and the often tragic confusion wrought by those who preach certainty. A distinctive and compelling debut.
Psychologically perceptive and sharply observed, The Adept is a glittering, fractured and affecting narrative, animated by a range of contemporary anxieties. It takes the reader on an unsettling journey through belief, doubt and paranoia in taut language and faceted imagery.
Kevin Mills
The Adept’ is the work at once of an adept story-teller, and an inventive poet, who tells his story with flex and flair, moving between a fluent free verse, and an imaginative inhabitation of inherited forms. Lapidary renditions of mood, and sketches of environment combine with a compelling story, to create a genuinely novel lyric-based narrative poem.
Clare Connors
You can read a review in The Law Gazette
Author biography
The Adept is Tom’s debut published collection. He mixes his creative practice with academia, having completed the Creative Writing MA at Teesside University and the University of South Wales’ MPhil in Writing programme; he is currently a PhD candidate. Deeply inspired by snow and water, Tom lived by the sea in Vancouver and ventured into the Stockholm archipelago before settling in the UK. He now resides in the West Midlands, far from the sea but where there are lots of canals and the occasional blizzard. He is married with two daughters.