Savage Gods

by Paul Kingsnorth

  Everything is questions, questions only now. Can I make myself quiet in a world that wants me to shout? Who will drag me through the cold river? Which path leads out of the wood? How can I make myself hear? How can I get out of my own way? If I do, when I do, what will be waiting beneath?

  I ask: what must I do now?

  And I wonder: what is the sacrifice?

  But even as I ask,

  I know the answer.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This was not an easy book to bring to fruition, and I owe gratitude to those who helped birth it. My agent Jessica Woollard believed in it when many others doubted, and kept me believing in it too. My friends Martin Shaw, Charles Foster, Jay Griffiths, Mark Lynas, Caroline Ross and Dougald Hine read various versions of the manuscript and offered their advice. Eric Obenauf and Eliza Wood-Obenauf at Two Dollar Radio took a punt on these pages when others passed.

  But most of all I am grateful to my family, especially my mum and my wife Jyoti, who have allowed me to write about them and the life they have both shared with me, without throwing me out of the house or refusing to return my calls. A book like this is a kind of ripping-open; delicate surgery which carries a high risk of failure. It is impossible—of course—to find the right words to acknowledge this kind of love.