The Surprising Thing Liz and Richard Have In Common With Carl And Eric (And Other News)
It's remarkable just how stone cold dead an ill-fitting narrator can kill an audiobook: someone who fails to disguise their disinterest in the story and characters, clearly has no grasp of the book's intentions, or quite simply has the wrong voice for the material. As an audiobook addict, I've experienced the phenomenon many times over the years. If you are looking for the antithesis of it, I cannot more zealously recommend Justin Avoth's narration of Erotic Vagrancy, Roger Lewis' biography of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton (although the book is really so much more than that: in a way, a biography of the second half of the 20th Century as told through the couple). It's a work of dizzying energy and colour, genius putting on a perfectly matching coat also made of genius, all topped off with the most uncannily brilliant impersonations of people at the forefront of post-war thespian life. Since I listened to it, early last year, I've not been able to get it out of my head and have lost count of the number of people I've recommended it to.. "What I'd give for this guy to narrate the audiobook of my novels!" I kept thinking. So when I heard that there was going to be an audiobook of Everything Will Swallow You, I got in touch with Justin and asked him if he might be willing to do just that. When he said yes, I almost fell over. In my experience, it is increasingly rare that such wildly ambitious hopes turn into reality.
I have recorded a few of my own audiobooks in the past: I felt it was totally right that I should narrate 21st-Century Yokel and Ring The Hill but I stepped in, slightly reluctantly, to narrate Help The Witch only when I heard from the audiobook company that the Peep Show star Isy Suttie, who'd been vocally enthusiastic about the book on Twitter and shown interest in doing the job, was beyond their price range. I am 100% comfortable being the reader of my non-fiction but, when it comes to my non-fiction, I'd rather have an expert on the job, and I could not have been more convinced, via his epic work on Erotic Vagrancy, that Justin is one of those. I can't wait to see what he decides do with Carl and Eric and I am keeping my fingers crossed his recordings of Villager and 1983 will soon follow. You can pre-order Justin's recording of EWSY - as I have a habit of now calling it - here.
This week I was also pleased to discover that EWSY has been chosen as one of Bookshop.Org's top fiction and poetry reads for 2025.
I am still in a rebuilding stage right now, after the many many difficult consequences of the demise of my former publisher, Unbound. After working so hard on a novel, experiencing the terror that it might be lost altogether, then having to wait so long for it to see the light, publication day was always going to be an anticlimax for me, and turned out to be even more so as it coincided with a period of ill health which necessitated me cancelling a few of my launch events. Slowly, though, it feels like the book is reaching an appreciative audience. Thanks so much if you have sent a message about it, shared your thoughts about it on social media, left a review online, or just generally helped it get further out into the world.
My mum, Jo, has very kindly donated some of her original art to me to give away to new subscribers to this page (you'll see a selection below). I'll send one of these to anyone, worldwide, who subscribes at the annual Villager (£70) rate or Help The Witch (£40) rate before the end of tomorrow, 13th November 2025. People who upgrade from the Yokel level will also qualify. Please email me at hello@tom-cox.com with your address once you have subscribed/upgraded and I'll get the art straight out to you.
You can read more about my mum's work here and find her Etsy page here.
My main job for this winter is to get back into novel writing mode: a state of mind I've missed a lot since finishing Everything Will Swallow You and being forced, due to the Unbound mess, to abandon the novel I'd begun writing directly afterwards. Also, though, I have a collection of short stories I've now finished, and decided to put out myself, probably as a limited edition, and through a crowdfunding process. I'll be telling you more about that very soon. In case you missed them, you can sample of a couple which will definitely be finding their way into the finished manuscript:
Tom Cox
Tom Cox
Until next time,
Tom
