The Writers of Wales Database

NICHOLS, JEB LOY

Website: http://www.jebloynichols.co.uk/

Artist, musician and writer Jeb Loy Nichols was raised in Wyoming, USA. He has exhibited his artwork in London, Tokyo, Berlin and Cardiff. As a member of ’Fellow Travellers’ and as a solo artist, he has released ten CDs. He has performed with musicians Richard Thompson, Danny Thompson, John Martyn, Lucinda Williams & Horace Andy. Jeb moved to Wales in 2000 and lives near Welshpool, reclaiming ten acres of neglected scrub land, renovating a barn and putting in a large garden. He has recently published his debut novel with Alcemi and intends to stay in Wales. Jeb was a runner-up in Academi's 2009 Rhys Davies Short Story Competition.

Reviews:
With respect to The Untogether (Alcemi, 2008)

"…This is not a love story. With this haunting, modernist account of lives struck by loss and threatened by love, Jeb Loy Nichols emerges as a singular voice…”
John Williams

”…Venturing briskly through what is not said, The Untogether demonstrates a proper ‘allegiance to the peripheries’. The waiting times. Remaindered dreams. In stance and style, Jeb Loy Nichols summons the vagrant spirit of Douglas Woolf, that great master of going-with-your-fate. Here is a supple intelligence in play. A sprightly and welcome voice…”
Iain Sinclair

“…A master of saying plenty in few words and sharply economical discourse… [this novel] is a diverting love story glimpsed in the cracked wing mirror of a subverted American road trip…”
Susie Wild, New Welsh Review


Selected Publications:
The Untogether (Alcemi, 2008)




The Untogether (Alcemi, 2008)

Lee is a grown man with a sweet tooth and a mild case of uniform fetish. A phone call from a distant hospital summons him to the bedside of his father, Arthur; a man he barely knew. He seeks solace in his father’s nurses, despite being told they attend mandatory training on not dating the bereaved. With Rita, he discovers she’s more interested in Jesus. With Ann, Lee finds himself on random circling routes along country roads, looking for her missing dog Quincy. When his eccentric mother Pet shows up, she starts to spill gin and family secrets. Do these explain why their only photo of Arthur is a shadow cast from behind the camera?

A love story – intimate, warm, drily humorous, The Untogether is a pithy novel on fatherhood, addiction and “insurmountable opportunities". It is also about the missing parts of our lives, and the things we fill them with.

To purchase this title from gwales.com, please click on its front cover