Sue Rainsford is a fiction and arts writer based in Dublin. A graduate of Trinity College, she completed her MFA in writing and literature at Bennington College, Vermont. She is a recipient of the VAI/DCC Critical Writing Award, the Arts Council Literature Bursary Award, and a MacDowell Colony Fellowship. When it was first published, Follow Me to Ground won the Kate O'Brien Award and was longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and the Republic of Consciousness Award.
One of LitHub's Favorite Books of the Year
Palm Beach Post, Buzzfeed, and LitHub's Most Anticipated of
2020
One of AV Club's New Books to Read This January
A Daily Break January Latest Read
One of Tor.com's All New Genre-Bending Books Coming Out in January!
"Refreshingly, the novel disregards the predilections of
contemporary literary fiction and instead veers toward
allegory...What's best in the novel is its idiosyncratic vision of
the meaning of girlhood and first love...The tale pulses with
images of opening and entering, into the ground, into patients'
bodies, in sexual union. The suggestion is that a teenage crush is
an experience of haunting and being haunted, and that maturity
comes through a process of utter, ruinous self-absorption."
--New York Times Book Review "Sue Rainsford's fresh and exciting
first novel, Follow Me to Ground, reads like a dark fairy tale...a
pleasure to read. Seeing the world from Ada's perspective is
intoxicating, and as she grows in her power, we feel lucky to be
taken along for the ride. With language that's visceral and
jarringly beautiful, Rainsford has created a mysterious world that
left me wanting to hear more tales of the strange healers and their
trusting Cures."
--BookPage "Part fairytale, part myth, with a touch of horror and a
heavy dose of magical realism, [Follow Me to Ground] is unsettling
in the best way. Ada's otherness allows us to see human illness at
a remove and to consider what it might mean to be truly
healed."
--Electric Literature "In this serenely haunting tale, told in
prose at once lyrical and unsettling, a lonely inhuman girl running
a magical curing business with her father searches for a way to
come alive...Visceral in its descriptions and carried by a
spellbinding first-person narrative intertwined with lore from
fearful Cures, this unworldly story is a well-crafted and eerie
exploration of desire... beautifully intoxicating,"
--Shelf Awareness "As the world around us becomes more frightening,
we're seeing fiction reflect those terrors, becoming more expansive
in its speculative, magical, and often apocalyptic themes; Sue
Rainsford's debut falls directly into this camp. It's as much about
our difficulty connecting with others as it is about family,
community, and compassion... Follow Me to the Ground is deeply
rooted in human flesh, bodies, and transformation."
--Thrillist, The Best Books of 2020 (So Far) "Rainsford's
protagonists, beings of the "Ground," live in isolation in the
woods, tolerated by nearby villagers for their magical healing
powers. Underworld elements keep creeping into this moody fairy
tale, but a young woman's liberation is the main, intriguing
attraction."
--Entertainment Weekly, 20 must-read books for January "Rainsford
draws readers into her arresting and disconcerting tale... "Follow
Me to Ground" is a haunting and puzzling story that is distinctly
unafraid to poke about the horror that can exist within an
individual... readers will quickly fall entranced by Rainsford's
earthy tale."
--TimaMarie Craven, The Ridgefield Press "This wildly inventive
story reads like a centuries' old myth you can't believe you've
never heard before, and [Rainsford's] prose will hold you captive
like a spider's thread."
--LitHub, Most Anticipated of 2020 "Follow Me to Ground is a
haunting, intoxicating debut that establishes its author as one to
watch in the future."
--BookBrowse
Named a Best Book of 2019 by The Guardian and The Irish Times "An
astonishing debut heralding the career of an exciting new writer.
Strange, lyrical, and arresting, this novel will draw readers into
its extraordinary spell."
--Kirkus, starred review "In this exhilaratingly original work,
lyrical prose gives voice to the strange and alluring Ada, whose
spellbinding account alternates with the Cures' testimonials.
Seductive and finally horrific; highly recommended."
--Library Journal, starred review "Brimming with dark folklore and
underworld energy, Rainsford's stellar debut features a memorable
heroine chafing against her monstrous isolation...Rainsford excels
in describing the grotesque beauty of...alternative medicine in
which the humming healers feel their "way to the pitch of [the
patient's] hurt"...This is a subtle, unsettling novel in which
desire is an ineradicable sickness that can be preferable to
health."
--Publishers Weekly, starred review "Haunting ... With an evocative
novel bending fantasy into a universe of subtle horror and bodies
cracking open to be healed, Rainsford pulls the reader into a
frightening, tangible world of monstrosity, humanity, and
healing."
--Booklist "Like all the best horror, it's an impressive balancing
act between judicious withholding and unnerving reveals: you don't
want to go into it knowing too much ... Always singularly and
entirely itself."
--The Guardian "Beautiful and terrifying."
--The Sunday Times "Sue Rainsford's Follow Me to Ground is a
triumph of imagination and myth-bending--a weird, tender, haunted
and deeply affecting spectacle, equal parts beauty and horror, and
unlike anything you will read this year."
--Téa Obreht, author of The Tiger's Wife and Inland "A tangled,
gnarled, wonderfully original, strange, beautiful beast of a book.
I will be reading everything Rainsford ever writes."
--Daisy Johnson, author of Everything Under "Sue Rainsford has
written a gorgeous and unsettling novel. Follow Me To Ground is a
fresh and primal exploration of bodies and healing, of the fight
between one's calling and most ardent desires. A stunningly
original debut."
--Megan Mayhew Bergman, author of Birds of a Lesser Paradise and
Almost Famous Women "Sue Rainsford's Follow Me to Ground carries
both the great force of myth and the clarity of song. In Ada, her
father, and in their shape-shifting, unforgettable journey, we are
given a merciless chronicle of this bright, wounded world. This is
a novel that burns beautifully, that dives to levels we are blind
to, and soars."
--Paul Yoon, author of Once the Shore and The Mountain "Sue
Rainsford's talent is fierce, palpable, and hypnotic ... a
dazzlingly troubling dream."
--Colin Barrett, author of Young Skins
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