One Boat
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Fitzcarraldo Editions
Publishing:13th Mar '25
£14.99
This title is due to be published on 13th March, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
On losing her father, Teresa returns to a small town on the Greek coast – the same place she visited when grieving her mother nine years ago. She immerses herself again in the life of the town, observing the inhabitants going about their business, a quiet backdrop for her reckoning with herself. An episode from her first visit resurfaces vividly – her encounter with John, a man struggling to come to terms with the violent death of his nephew. Soon Teresa encounters some of the people she met last time around: Petros, an eccentric mechanic, whose life story may or may not be part of John's; the beautiful Niko, a diving instructor; and Xanthe, a waitress in one of the cafés on the leafy town square. They talk about their longings, regrets, the passing of time, their sense of who they are. Artfully constructed, absorbing and insightful, One Boat is a brilliant novel grappling with questions of identity, free will, guilt and responsibility.
‘Buckley has once again staged an absorbing debate: a philosophical refusal of narrative linearity that is replete with stories; a constellation of episodes that does not tell the whole tale.’
— Richard Robinson, Guardian (praise for Tell)
‘Tell is one of the best new novels I’ve read in a while.’
— Benjamin Markovits, Telegraph (praise for Tell)
‘Given that so many of Buckley’s novels are concerned with ideas of memory, selfhood and storytelling, this is hardly new territory for him. Yet the interview conceit in Tell makes it feel fresh, the withholding of interiority requiring an unusual engagement. Don’t take the conversational prose at face value; underneath it lies a whole other set of mysteries besides Curtis’s. Pay attention and you’ll find them.’
— George Cochrane, Financial Times (praise for Tell)
‘Always well crafted, this novel is engaging in parts and digressive in others, which adds to its realism, capturing how people chatter their way down alleys, rarely hewing to the main road of a tale…. The buildup in Tell is perpetual, a sense that an explanation must be coming. But the author diverges from expectations and converges on reality, where remembering is not the same as understanding. Abruptly, someone may just disappear, and all that remains is the sight of a figure wandering across a bridge — no splash heard, just the fading ripples of “why.”’
— Tom Rachman, New York Times (praise for Tell)
ISBN: 9781804271766
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
168 pages