The sea has always been a powerful stimulant for the literary imagination, most famously, of course, for the likes of Messrs Hemingway and Melville. Both, indeed, are name-checked in Monique Roffey’s novel Archipelago, a new addition to the canon of ocean-inspired work, taking the trope of the waters and recasting it for the twenty-first century.
Gavin Weald has had his family torn apart by a flood, his Trinidad house ruined and, worse still, losing his son and seeing his wife incapacitated. He is left alone with his six-year-old daughter, Océan, to try and rebuild a life. At the start of the novel he returns to his refurbished house but realizes he can’t yet face the site of his tragedy. Instead, he bundles his daughter into the car, stocks up on supplies and sets sail in his boat Romany.
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