Man with a Seagull on His Head
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Linked by an unlikely accident, four strangers characters grapple with loneliness, memory, and the mysteries of art.
Ray Eccles is a man who dislikes unpredictability and the messiness of social interaction, to such extent that his co-workers’ habit of gathering around the Xerox machine it’s his job to run makes even that regular task unbearable. When a misunderstanding leads to unexpected time off from work, Ray takes a day trip to nearby East Beach on what happens to be his fortieth birthday. As he gazes at the sea, a distant woman turns to face him—and a seagull falls from the sky, knocking him unconscious. He awakens compelled to paint her image, using whatever materials come to hand: jam, ketchup, even the walls of his home.
Enter George and Grace Zoob, collectors of Outsider Art, whose endorsement rockets Ray to fame in the art world and beyond. Soon even small-town newspapers are covering his work—which is how Jennifer, the woman on the beach, discovers she’s the sole subject of the paintings that have set the world on fire, leading her to wonder if a man she’s never met is the only person who has ever really seen her.
Lyrical, elegant and quietly profound, Harriet Paige’s Man With a Seagull on His Head captures the small, shared moments where our lives overlap, making artistry out of the everyday.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Page's graceful debut follows an unwitting artist's rise to fame and provides deep introspections about loneliness and death. A seagull falls from the sky and hits Ray Eccles on the beach in Shoeburyness, England. A discombobulated Ray fixates on Jennifer Mulholland, the only witness of his accident, and subsequently covers the walls of his house with crudely drawn renditions of her face (always as he saw it right after the accident) using whatever materials he can find: food, blood, semen. His frantic work draws the attention of outsider art collectors George and Grace Zoob. They move Ray into their London apartment and attempt to involve him in their open marriage, though Ray does not reciprocate their attraction. Years later, Ray has gained significant success from obsessively producing the same image. Jennifer, now married into a sprawling Italian family, learns that she has been an unwitting muse. She travels to London to meet Ray, arriving just as Grace assaults Ray over his indifference to her. Ray flees with no memory of his time as an artist and spends years on the street with a befriended pigeon. The story concludes far in the future with a touching final moment. The novel's charming, light tone nicely balances its powerful meditations on art and failed expectations, resulting in a moving story.
