A weathered nineteenth-century headstone; the sheet music to Ode to Joy; a pattern of stars which marks the gravesite of a long lost child; an underground cellar holding the plaster fresco of the sky at night — this is the delicate web of detail and legend which links those who have lived in a Trinity Bay cove.
Firmament is at once a series of stories and a novel depicting the changing human landscape of an outport. Preacher Poole voyages through the eroticism of biblical verses while watching a tourist undress on the beach. Eleven-year-old Caleb is seduced by broadening horizons as sophisticated cousin Marina arrives in the cove complete with an upright piano. Michael, a navy deserter with a truly harrowing past, delights local children with seafaring adventures.
The stories spanning two hundred years are subtly interwoven with the human graffiti of lives past. Characters enter and leave the cove under the ever-watchful stars which give this highly accomplished work its name.
—Jurors’ comments, Fresh Fish Award for Emerging Writers
Firmament is at once a series of stories and a novel depicting the changing human landscape of an outport. Preacher Poole voyages through the eroticism of biblical verses while watching a tourist undress on the beach. Eleven-year-old Caleb is seduced by broadening horizons as sophisticated cousin Marina arrives in the cove complete with an upright piano. Michael, a navy deserter with a truly harrowing past, delights local children with seafaring adventures.
The stories spanning two hundred years are subtly interwoven with the human graffiti of lives past. Characters enter and leave the cove under the ever-watchful stars which give this highly accomplished work its name.
—Jurors’ comments, Fresh Fish Award for Emerging Writers
No comments:
Post a Comment