This remorselessly slow-moving, hazily allegorical drama about ageing and xenophobia is Jim Crace’s 12th book, and the first to appear since he announced his retirement from writing in 2013. Like much of his other work, it lays its scene in a topographical and temporal bubble of the author’s own devising, where recognisable aspects of society and geography are almost imperceptibly twisted away from true.
The place is a nameless seaside community that isn’t in France, Italy, Malta, Greece or seemingly anywhere, but where people are called Dell’Ova and Busi and Pencillon and Klein; the period falls hazily between the invention of the phonograph and ‘the chilling advent of packaged frozen food’, but villagers still shiver medievally about beasts in the woods and one character adopts the strangely modern custom of calling herself ‘Lexxx’.
The narrative drifts along in the wake of Alfred Busi, a sixtysomething crooner who ‘in his time had sung in the greatest halls and auditoriums’ but who, as the novel opens, haunts a shadowy mansion on the town’s seafront, mourning his dead wife.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in