Jodie Matthews - Meet Me at the Surface

Join us for a fascinating evening with author and poet Jodie Mathews. Her debut novel, Meet Me at the Surface is a haunting ode to Cornish folklore and the secrets of the places we call home. 

Everything that comes from the ground has to go back down… eventually.  

Merryn grew up on the wilds of Bodmin moor, raised by her mother and her aunt in an old farmhouse. Here, the locals never leave the village, fear for the future of their farms and cling desperately to the folkloric tales that are woven into their history. Except Merryn, who has escaped to Manchester for university, briefly untethering herself from her past. When Merryn returns home for the memorial service of her ex-girlfriend Claud, she finds her childhood home stranger and more secretive than ever. She’s sure that her mother is hiding something. The villagers are hunting on the moors at night, but for what? And then there’s a notebook, found in an old chest of drawers, full of long-forgotten folklore that seems to be linked somehow to Claud…

Join us for an evening full of Cornish folklore and the ways Joan the Wad and the Giant of Carn Galva have inspired Jodie to make her own stories. Meet Me At The Surface is a hugely enjoyable folk horror that weaves myth with an unforgettable haunted house mystery. It was shortlisted for the Bath Novel Award and the Blue Pencil First Novel Award 2021.

‘Meet Me At The Surface is a book where language feels like hands reaching into the soil, where landscapes feel alive, where sentences, houses and memory are suffused with the uncanny. It manages to do the magic trick of containing a propulsive narrative whilst being formally inventive, weaving complex narrative strands into a compelling, beguiling tapestry. It is an astonishing book by a special writer, who I have no doubt has a hugely successful career ahead of her’ - Tom De Freston, author of Wreck

‘Assured and beautifully written, Jodie Matthews’ novel is an astonishing debut. It’s rare to find the Cornwall which most of us Cornish recognise in modern literature, but it’s here in all its vivid and magical glory. Rhythmic, atmospheric and endearing’ - Charlie Carroll, author of The Lip

Friday March 1st 2024 - 7.30pm

Tickets £6.00