| Signals of Distress Contributor(s): Crace, Jim (Author) |
|
 |
ISBN: 0312424426 ISBN-13: 9780312424428 Publisher: St. Martins Press-3PL OUR PRICE: $18.90 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: January 2005 Annotation: ""Signals of Distress" is an engrossing book...Crace is a genius at making round and really human characters, and his characters make his novel superb."--"Newsday" November, 1836. A fierce gale beaches an American sail ship off the English coast, injuring an African slave below decks and eventually disgorging 300 head of cattle and rowdy American sailors into a hardscrabble fishing village. The same storm drives into port a steamer, bearing one Aymer Smith, the foolish well-intentioned prig who will deprive the town of its livelihood, free the African slave, and set into motion a whole series of unforeseeable, tragicomic events. One of the most seductive and surprising novelist at work today, once again creates a richly strange and believable world, uncannily familiar to our own. "One of the brightest lights in contemporary British fiction. With beguiling narrative ease and prose lyric enough to invest the most ordinary events with mystery, Mr. Crace...lays bare the commonplace events-always unrecorded-that crystallize later as 'history.'"-- Charles Johnson, "The New York Times Book Review" "Crace weaves a progressive magic into this mythic plot with masterful detail, luminous prose and haunting characterization."--"The Boston Globe" JIM CRACE is the author of seven other novels, including "Being Dead," which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction, and, most recently, "Genesis," He lives in Birmingham, England. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Fiction | Literary |
| Dewey: FIC |
| Physical Information: 0.71" H x 5.27" W x 8.75" (0.82 lbs) 288 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 1800-1850 - Cultural Region - British Isles |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: November, 1836. A fierce gale beaches an American sail ship off the English coast, injuring an African slave below decks and eventually disgorging 300 head of cattle and rowdy American sailors into a hardscrabble fishing village. The same storm drives into port a steamer, bearing one Aymer Smith, the foolish well-intentioned prig who will deprive the town of its livelihood, free the African slave, and set into motion a whole series of unforeseeable, tragicomic events. One of the most seductive and surprising novelist at work today, once again creates a richly strange and believable world, uncannily familiar to our own. |
Contributor Bio(s): Crace, Jim: - Jim Crace is the author of many novels, including Quarantine, which won the 1997 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award and was shortlisted for the 1997 Booker Prize for Fiction. His novels have been translated into eighteen languages. He lives with his wife and children in Birmingham, England. |