The Coal-black Sea

Set in Dublin, Ireland, The Coal-black Sea is a journey in the mind of a complex, self-obsessed and, betimes, violent woman called Joan Fey. We meet her first as an irritable and somewhat abusive mother, and after the situation reaches crisis, we are taken on a retrospective trip to her first days in 1970s Dublin, when she arrived from her rural home in hope of liberation. Erratic moods, intellectual yearnings, confused sexuality and delusions conflate in this reclusive and inflammable character. The result is murder, abandonment and perverse love. Finally, the question is a philosophical one—that of culpability. How much are we to blame for our actions? Can we apply justice to ourselves? How much guilt can one woman hold in secret?