Sunday, January 2, 2011

Jeremy Page's Haunting Novel

After experiencing a devastating tragedy, Guy sets out to sea in an old Dutch barge that has now become his home. Every night, he writes the imagined diary of the man he might have been-and the family he should have had.

As he embarks upon the stormy waters of the North Sea-writing about a trip through the small towns and nightclubs of the rural American South-Guy's stories begin to unfold in unexpected ways. And when he meets a mother and daughter, he realizes that it might just be possible to begin his life again.

Jackie says:

"I got pulled into this book by its beautiful, descriptive language. The land, the water, the boat were characters that participated in the plot in very real ways. And the world 'real' means a lot here, because the main character, Guy, is at best half real. He lives on an old barge, trolling around the North Sea's coast, lost in more ways than one. Five years prior a terrible fluke accident had occurred and his young daughter was killed. His marriage did not survive long after her death. At least in the real world. But every night Guy sits in his boat and writes a diary of what could have/should have been. It is far more of his life than the physical world is. Until a chance encounter with another woman and her daughter gives him a glimpse of a possible connection to and future in the real world. The question is if that glimpse has come in time. This is a quiet, layered book that leaves you pondering what happens in it long after the last page is turned."

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