Isabelle the Navigator
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
How do we find ourselves when we lose others?
This striking novel from the author of the widely acclaimed cult bestseller Candy explores the life of a young woman as she deals with the deaths of the two important men in her life: her great love Matthew Smith, and her 'gorgeous, sad father' Tom Airly.
A lyrical meditation on love, loss, betrayal, disintegration and the passage of time, Isabelle the Navigator charts Isabelle's inner journey, as well as her actual travels - from childhood in Sydney, to love in the vast spaces off the Western Australian coast, to grief and eventually hope in Paris. This is a portrait of an extraordinarily vital woman that is at once epic and fable, swirling and intensely focused.
'Isabelle Airly is a triumph of Davies' poetic imagination . . [a] prodigious talent . . staggering prose' The Age
' stunningly beautiful narrative' The Bulletin
'it leaves you admiring Davies's gifts and his desire to take risks.' The Sydney Morning Herald.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Isabelle the Navigator, Australian poet and novelist Luke Davies (Candy) examines family secrets and tragedies through the eyes of his female protagonist. The novel begins shortly after the death of Isabelle Airly's father, Tom. A doctor, he had spent four years in prison for insurance fraud; from the time of his release until his suicide at the age of 56, he fell further out of touch with reality. Part of his despair was caused by the affair his wife, Tess, had with his brother, Dan, when Isabelle was a little girl. At 22, Isabelle meets the love of her life, Matt, who is five years her senior and works as a deckhand and later as a band manager. Their passionate affair lasts for a few years, until Matt is killed in a motorcycle accident. Then Isabelle moves to Paris, has an affair with a Portuguese woman named Laura and generally tries to make sense of her life. Although the language is frequently overcooked, Davies tells Isabelle's story with sensitivity and passion.
