The body of my brother’s son
Stood by me knee to knee:
The body and I pull’d at one rope,
But he said nought to me—
These words are from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Coleridge doesn’t mention this nephew of the narrator again, but The Dead Men Stood Together imagines the tale that Coleridge tells from the point of few of this nameless teenage boy. Like Coleridge’s poem, it is a story about how interconnected we all are, as humans and as living things – and is a dire warning about the consequences of our actions.
Full of unease, suspense and horror – Carousel
A startlingly luminous take on The Rime of the Ancient Mariner – the Literary Review
Longlisted for the UKLA Children’s Book Award 2015
The Dead Men Stood Together is published by Bloomsbury.
Chris Priestley 