Is the beast prowling through the pages of this beguiling book real or a figment of the imagination of the narrator who, alone in the wilderness, wonders: “Perhaps I am losing my mind”? Such questions keep us gripped throughout the sequel to The Wake, Kingsnorth’s idiosyncratic debut novel.

Beast continues Kingsnorth’s powerful exploration of the connection between people, place and prose. The narrator Edward Buckmaster has left behind his family for a “wild place”, hoping that, after his existential odyssey, “everything would be better”. Linguistically experimental, the narrative is adept at expressing experience “so hard to put into words”, capturing what it’s like to feel “broken in this broken place”, and emotions as “dark and roiling” as the weather. Obsessed with tracking down the beast, Buckmaster asks “What kind of man am I?” – for this is a novel bravely wrestling not only with the bestial, but with what it is that makes us human.

Beast is published by Faber (£12.99). Click here to order it for £10.65