Fabulous Fiction First #592

Tue, 04/12/2016 - 6:30pm by muffy

Spill Simmer Falter Wither * * by Sara Baume, the winner of the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature; short-listed for the Costa First Novel Award; and also a March 2016 Indie Next Pick, is praised as "unbearably poignant and beautifully told... (a) captivating story follows, over the course of four seasons (echoed in the title), a misfit man who adopts a misfit dog."

57 year-old Ray lives alone at the edge of the Irish sea. Once a week on Tuesdays, he goes into the village for supplies, and it is on one of these trips in the spring that he saw a notice about a dog up for adoption. With a back story equally heartbreaking, Ray and One-Eye (injured severely while badger baiting), forge an unlikely connection.

With each other as company, they venture out and explore their surroundings, and their small, seaside town suddenly takes note of them. A mishap on the beach brings the dog warden to their door. Desperately and ill-prepared, the pair takes to the road as autumn turns into winter.

"Fans of Garth Stein’s The Art of Racing in the Rain (2008) will adore this glimpse inside a very unusual relationship between two very unusual creatures."

Suggested read-alikes: Mirian Toews' All My Puny Sorrows - "rich with deep human feeling and compassion..., (where) observations are knife-sharp"; and All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld, the story of an isolated life in all its struggles and stubborn hopes, unexpected beauty, and hard-won redemption.

* * = 2 starred reviews