The earth, thy great exchequer, ready lies - Jo Lloyd

Whether seeking knowledge, riches, or a better life, the characters in these stories are united by a quest for lasting value, as they ask how we should treat our world, our work, our selves, and each other. A vainglorious mine owner dreams of harnessing all of nature to the machinery of commerce. Two ladies of a certain age hunt rare butterflies in a pre-First World War Europe already experiencing the first bites of biodiversity loss. A climate campaigner must choose between personal happiness and political action. A rural Welsh community is fascinated and angered by glimpses of its invisible, wealthy neighbours.

Jo Lloyd won the BBC National Short Story Award in 2019 and
an O. Henry Prize in 2018. Her stories have appeared in Zoetrope: All-Story,
Ploughshares, Southern Review, and elsewhere. The Earth, Thy
Great Exchequer, Ready Lies is her first collection. She grew up in South
Wales, where she now lives.

Jo Lloyd writes stories that have the epic sweep, sly humor,
and cold, thrilling depths of Mavis Gallant and Jim Shepard, as well as an
idiosyncratic brilliance that is hers alone. Her sentences could rouse the dead
(and do, in this excellent book).

Karen Russell


Sara Baume

I would read anything with her name on it

Zoe Gilbert

Beautifully balanced and well-proportioned, the stories inThe Earth, Thy Great Exchequer, Ready Liesadd
up to a compassionate portrait of the ways that people are frail and all the
different ways that they can fail

Jessie Greengrass

The collection reminds me of nothing so much as a series of
incredibly detailed black and white photographs, each of which perfectly
captures an aspect of existence that I've brushed against before but never
taken the time to consider. And it's not enough that each story is perfect; Jo
Lloyd does more with single sentences than a lot of people do in entire novels

Sara Taylor

These stories have a relish for language and an enviable
precision that announce a crisp, exciting new voice in short fiction

Richard Beard