November, 1836. A fierce gale beaches an American steamer off the English coast, injuring an African slave below decks and eventually disgorging 300 head of cattle and an innful of rowdy American sailors into a hardscrabble fishing village. The same storm drives into port a ship from London, bearing one Aymer Smith, the foolish well-intentioned prig who will deprive the town of its livelihood, free the American slave, and set into motion a whole series of unforeseeable, tragicomic events. Chosen by Publisher's Weekly as one of the best books of 1995, Signals of Distress, Jim Crace's fourth novel, once again displays the author's gift for inventing richly strange and believable worlds that uncannily foretell our own.
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"Signals of Distress is an engrossing book...Crace is a genius at making round and really human characters, and his characters make his novel superb."--Newsday
November, 1836. A fierce gale beaches an American sail ship off the English coast, injuring an African slave below decks and eventually disgorging 300 head of cattle and rowdy American sailors into a hardscrabble fishing village. The same storm drives into port a steamer, bearing one Aymer Smith, the foolish well-intentioned prig who will deprive the town of its livelihood, free the African slave, and set into motion a whole series of unforeseeable, tragicomic events. One of the most seductive and surprising novelist at work today, once again creates a richly strange and believable world, uncannily familiar to our own.
"One of the brightest lights in contemporary British fiction. With beguiling narrative ease and prose lyric enough to invest the most ordinary events with mystery, Mr. Crace...lays bare the commonplace events-always unrecorded-that crystallize later as 'history.'"-- Charles Johnson, The New York Times Book Review
"Crace weaves a progressive magic into this mythic plot with masterful detail, luminous prose and haunting characterization."--The Boston Globe
JIM CRACE is the author of seven other novels, including Being Dead, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction, and, most recently, Genesis. He lives in Birmingham, England.
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. Any book may show light shelf wear from warehouse storage and handling. Seller Inventory # SKU1047378
Book Description Soft Cover. Condition: NEW. First Edition. Softcover, NEW, no marks or blemishes. Immediate shipping w/tracking included. Seller Inventory # 018724
Book Description Soft cover. Condition: COLLECTIBLE - NEW. First Edition, First Pinting. BRAND NEW & Collectible. A fierce storm beaches an American steamer, with a cargo of some 300 head of cattle off the English coast; another ship from London seeks shelter in the port. Rowdy American sailors, an injured African slave, and well-meaning Aymer Smith bent on freeing the American slave overwhelm a tiny fishing village. Fine copy. Seller Inventory # 001784