First Love
A review of William Prendiville's Atlantic Winds
Judging
by the quality of this debut novella and Omar Sabbagh’s Minutes from the Miracle City (which I reviewed earlier on this blog), the second wave of “Fairlight Moderns” from Fairlight Books promises to be something to
really look forward to.
William
Prendiville’s Atlantic Winds
is set in the 1970s in the small island community of Bear Lake, off mainland
Canada. It opens with an ominous
prologue, as a one-time resident returns to pay his respects at a grave at the town cemetery. In contrast, the ensuing
chapters of the novella evoke a wistful, tender atmosphere, centred as they are
around protagonists Tom and Sasha’s first attempts at love. The growth of the teenagers' relationship has
something bucolic about it: nurtured by the play of the changing seasons, at
its idyllic best amidst natural surroundings.
However,
this coming-of-age story also develops against the backdrop of civil unrest in the
town of Bear Lake, which relies for its economic survival on the beleaguered logging
industry. As employees are laid off and
unions escalate industrial action, tension rises in a community which is
already prone to gossip and divisions. Sasha’s
father is a factory foreman and Tom longs to get away from it all. It will take all of the young lovers’ efforts
to avoid getting sucked into this incendiary vortex.
Atlantic Winds is a
little gem. Its writing is lyrical, characters are well-drawn, the dialogue
convincing and the plot has some unexpected turns. By its poignant conclusion, it was reminding
me of the verismo operas of the early
20th Century or the short stories of Giovanni Verga. Admittedly, this comparison might seem
unlikely applied to a contemporary novella by an Irish, Paris-based writer. Since I would like to avoid spoilers, I invite
you to read the work for yourself and see whether or not you agree.
Paperback, 144 pages
Expected publication: July 11th 2019 by Fairlight Books
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