The Ghost Lake

'Remarkable'OBSERVER


'Deeply profound… this is no ordinary memoir' THE TIMES


‘Astounding’ ADAM FARRER


‘Brave and luminous’ SARAH LANGFORD


‘Mesmerising’ POLLY ATKIN


‘Beautifully written’ YORKSHIRE POST


‘Steadfastly honest’ GEOGRAPHICAL



A memoir of grief, nature and ancestry in rural Yorkshire.



I am setting out on a pilgrimage through an ancient landscape.






I will begin at my daughter’s grave.




Paleolake Flixton is an extinct lake in North Yorkshire. Human occupation of the site dates back thousands of years to prehistoric times. Over the millennia, the vast lake disappeared, turning to wetland and peaty fields. Today all that is left of it is a watermark.


Wendy Pratt brings the reader on a pilgrimage around the ghost lake, to locations that have acted as journey markers in her own life. While traversing forests and fenland, she reflects on the process of finding belonging in nature as a woman who exists in a series of liminal spaces – as a working-class writer, an infertile woman in a fertile world and a bereaved mother in a society focused on children.


An early draft of The Ghost Lake was longlisted for the 2021 Nan Shepherd Prize.


‘In this lyric memoir, award-winning poet Pratt explores the land­scape of the Yorkshire Moors, and the ancient lost lake of Flixton, weaving together nature writing with an exploration of grief, belonging and the lives of rural working-class people. THE BOOKSELLER


‘There are some autobiographical writers who speak of utilising nature’s healing properties to overcome life challenges without fully acknowledging the role of luck in their trajectories. Not infrequently these writers become cultural spokespeople for or representatives of a demographic that they are actually no longer a part of, leaving those who are still grappling with their plights feeling as though it’s a personal failing that they can’t make their way out the same mires. This is a very different sort of book, a steadfastly honest one that views nature as a refuge rather than a cure. Many should find solace here. And others will simply gain pleasure from the descriptions of the archaeological finds unearthed from Yorkshire’s rich black peaty soils’GEOGRAPHICAL