Cove
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
“To read Cove is to take a masterclass in taking out everything but the essentials. This is writing stripped back to the bone, and storytelling that gets under the skin. Powerful, terrifying, brilliantly done.”—Jon McGregor, author of Reservoir 13
Out at sea, in a sudden storm, a man is struck by lightning. When he wakes, injured and adrift on a kayak, his memory of who he is and how he came to be here is all but shattered. He will need to rely on his instincts, resilience, and imagination to get safely back to the woman he dimly senses is waiting for his return. This is an extraordinary, visceral portrait of a man locked in a struggle with the forces of nature.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this genre-bending novel, Jones (The Long Dry) presents a harrowing tale of resilience. An unnamed man kayaks out into a bay one morning to spread his dead father's ashes. When a sudden storm rolls in, he is struck by lightning. He awakes with amnesia and severe injuries. Possessing only a limited amount of supplies and the fleeting memory of a woman and child waiting for him to return, he forms a plan to get back to land. Though brief, the book is immersive in its rich, poetic descriptions of nature ("The lightning is not the strike. It is the local effect of the strike. The air around it explodes.") and cleverly shifts between second and third person. At times the lyricism hurts comprehension with mixed metaphors and awkward similes, but the quick, sharp sentences and use of white space heighten narrative tension. As the protagonist fights the urge to drift away, collides with wildlife, and loses all sense of time, Jones's narrative becomes increasingly momentous. This is a gripping story with a unique style that reflects the remarkable limits of the human spirit.
