About the Book
'A powerful synthesis of perspective and self-determination'Irish Times'Fascinating ... affecting ... illuminating ... [Carthew] has genuinely interesting things to say'The Sunday Times''Most Cornish stories are told by outsiders, and are not Cornish stories at all... Natasha Carthew gives us something different in Rough Edges... She is a riveting, self-aware narrator'ObserverBeyond the picture postcards, Britain's coastal communities are suffering.Crowds flood the beaches during summer heatwaves but they quickly vanish again, leaving behind drifts of rubbish and unstable seasonal jobs. Seaside property is in high demand but affordable only for landlords and gentrifiers. The cost-of-living crisis and the ongoing pains of austerity trap those at the vulnerable edges of our nation in poverty.Having grown up in rural Cornwall, Natasha Carthew leaves the county in search of a new home. Travelling the country and exploring the villages, towns and cities of our coast, she meets the people fighting to keep these places alive. With fierce compassion, she shares their voices and their stories.Rough Edges is a rallying cry for the beauty and importance of our coast and its people.'This is essential reading for anyone who loves this country's seasides'Fiona Robertson, author of Stone Lands'A forceful but compassionate polemic, delivered with Carthew's trademark robustly lyrical prose style'Tim Hannigan, author of The Granite Kingdom'Natasha Carthew writes with an insight and an acuity of vision that few can match'Sally Huband, author of Sea Bean
About the Author :
Natasha Carthew is a Cornish working-class writer and poet. She is the author of ten books, mostly recently Undercurrent: A Cornish memoir of poverty, nature and resilience (2023), which was shortlisted for the non-fiction prize at the inaugural Nero Book Awards. She has also contributed to Hag: Forgotten Folk Tales (2020) and Women on Nature: 100+ Voices on Place, Landscape & the Natural World (2021) and Bog People: A Working-Class Anthology of Folk Horror (2025).Natasha is the Founder/Director of The Working Class Writers Festival and Common Ground Nature Prize for Working Class Writers.
Review :
A powerful synthesis of perspective and self-determination
Most Cornish stories are told by outsiders, and are not Cornish stories at all... Natasha Carthew gives us something different in Rough Edges... She is a riveting, self-aware narrator... Carthew has written her own life across the isles before she leaves them. It's at heart a plea for recognition
Insightful
I was impressed by Natasha Carthew's Rough Edges, which uses the structure of life over the four seasons to explore how much Britain's seaside communities are in trouble . . . She brings a light, entertaining touch to a choppy subject
Fascinating . . . affecting . . . illuminating . . . [Carthew] has genuinely interesting things to say.
[Carthew] approaches these places not as some Hampstead anthropologist parachuting in for atmosphere, but as someone emerging from the same conditions . . . the book is part memoir, part political meditation, part travelogue and part polemic on class, heritage and exclusion.
Rough Edges brings the reality of severe coastal poverty into sharp focus in an urgent and compassionate blend of candid memoir and compelling literary reportage. Natasha Carthew writes with an insight and an acuity of vision that few can match, and the messages of Rough Edges land with great integrity. Rough Edges unflinchingly scrutinises the systematic inequalities wrecking coastal communities and sets out a vision in which people in the 'salt belt' shorelines of these islands can thrive
Natasha Carthew is a brilliant chronicler of life at the salty margins and Rough Edges is a forceful but compassionate polemic, delivered with her trademark robustly lyrical prose style. It deserves to be widely read - an important and original voice
With profound fairness, generosity, pride and warmth, Natasha Carthew extends her voice and deep empathy to the forgotten communities eking out existence when the holidaymakers have gone home; to those left living on the selvedge edges of the coast so many hanker for, but don't stick around long enough to understand. With her trademark fierce, yet elegant lyricism, Carthew illuminates the lives, hardship and beauty of those who live on the 'salt belt,' squeezed between land and sea, in and out of season, and asks us to reconsider the coastal margins of our island with compassion, intelligence, tenderness and fresh eyes. Essential holiday reading
Bracing, insightful and compassionate, the book shines a light on communities too often unseen and unheard (not least in coastal nature-writing narratives). As the child of immigrants, I was also heartened to read Natasha Carthew's moving plea for a borderless world. Rough Edges ought to be required reading for UK politicians across the spectrum
A brilliant, eye-opening and moving investigation into the abandonment of Britain's coastal working class. Part paean to Natasha Carthew's own rural working class heritage, part searing critique of exploitation, greed and policy failure, this is essential reading for anyone who loves this country's seasides. There is much loss and sadness in these pages but ultimately the message is a powerful and hopeful one: it is possible for people to come together to fight for a fair and decent life for all
Candid, unflinching, brave. Natasha Carthew has distilled a year-long journey around the British coast and the hopes, challenges and histories of its working-class communities into a hugely important and passionate book. Set against a backdrop of buoyant, holidaying visitors and entrenched local poverty, this is a journey, ultimately, in search of home, connection and solidarity, a vital corrective to damaging cultural stereotypes and failed state policies. Rough Edges breaks a sensitive and authentic path towards a genuine understanding of what it means to be working class and to live on the precarious border between land and sea
Rough Edges is a true homage to Britain's working-class coastal communities. Having travelled from coastlines filled with shiny second homes to windswept estates teetering on the brink, Natasha Carthew offers heartfelt yet razor-sharp analysis of how those on the edges have been forgotten, ignored, and pushed aside. Beautifully written and passionately argued, Rough Edges is a must-read for anyone wanting to know just how badly the odds are stacked against these coasts' working-class communities, and what needs to change
This powerfully reminds me how ambition and education helped me to leave the Rough Edges of working-class coastal Britain, and why I so often yearn to return. For once, a book about the coast by someone who writes from the heart
Rough Edges is a blisteringly, raw portrait of life for those who exist on the social and physical margins of society. Carthew writes with exceptional authenticity and care to break apart the rural coastal idyll of our dreams. In doing so, she centres our focus on people whose humanity reveals how life along the coast is as precious and beautiful as the rocks exposed along its edge
Rough Edges is a bold undertaking, a breath of fresh air for those of us who eke out a living on the edge, and a glimpse of reality for those who only visit in the summer
As a working class writer from a struggling coastal town, I felt this book in my heart. Carthew is an eloquent, important voice that demands to be heard.
Lyrical, beautiful, vivid with emotion and raw, powerful beauty, this gripping, vital song to our coast is urgent, searing reading. With detailed research and scrupulously explored, this tale of the coastal working classes transforms our understanding of the very fabric of Britain.
Lyrical and admirably robust . . . Coastal humans and coastal wildlife alike need all the help, the friends in right places, that they can get. And this book should be an important contribution to that process
With profound fairness, generosity, pride and warmth, Natasha Carthew extends her voice and deep empathy to the forgotten communities eking out existence when the holidaymakers have gone home; to those left living on the selvedge edges of the coast so many hanker for, but don't stick around long enough to understand. With her trademark fierce, yet elegant lyricism, Carthew illuminates the lives, hardship and beauty of those who live on the "salt belt", squeezed between land and sea, in and out of season, and asks us to reconsider the coastal margins of our island with compassion, intelligence, tenderness and fresh eyes. Essential holiday reading
Rough Edges is a deep dive into people and place. Carthew is not scared of excavating the good and bad, illuminating stories that otherwise might not be told. Rough Edges peels back the complicated and sometimes fragile layers of our coastal fringes and is a rallying cry for those whose lives are inextricably connected to the tides. A shining antidote to learnt complacency and a call to look, then look again
