Poppyland moves on from D.J. Taylor's Stewkey Blues (2022) to offer more pitch-perfect reportage from his native Norfolk, bringing together a succession of characters who are hanging on from the lives they lead, in an attempt to do for the world of Norwich, Cromer, Hunstanton and Bacton what Annie Proulx does for Wyoming.

Shortlisted for the East Anglian Book Awards 2025

On Stewkey Blues: 'In his solid, grounded, entertaining collection of stories, DJ Taylor draws out the mythical qualities of East Anglia's terrain, urban or rural or somewhere marginal in between.' -Hilary Mantel

Most of the people in Poppyland are watching their lives begin to blur at the margins. From small-hours taxi offices, out-of-season holiday estates and flyblown market stalls, they sit observing an environment that seems to be moving steadily out of kilter, struggling to find agency, making compromises with a world that threatens to undermine them, and sometimes - but only sometimes - taking a decisive step that will change their destinies.