Debatable Land - Softcover

Candia McWilliam

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1408822997 ISBN 13: 9781408822999

Publisher: Bloomsbury UK, 2011

Synopsis

Set on a sailing boat as it travels from Tahiti to New Zealand, Debatable Land is a story of memory, childhood and longing. On board Ardent Spirit are the painter Alec Dundas, escaping a destructive, failed relationship; Logan Urquhart, the restless skipper; his troubled second wife Elspeth, who fears Logan is slipping away from her; Nick and Sandro, two marine nomads; and Gabriel, an attractive young woman who captivates the men. As the ship sails from island to island, the inner dramas of these six disparate individuals spill over into their relationships with one another. But when a storm arrives, they are wrenched from the personal and forced to face the present danger.

About this title

Review:

A Pacific cruise from Tahiti to New Zealand aboard the Ardent Spirit brings together six people whose characters will only slowly emerge before a climactic storm scene near the end. Alec and Elspeth, both Scottish, as is Candia McWilliam, alternate in narration, each veering between current events and memory to reveal further layers of detail beneath the surface. A central image of a stuffed tortoise cut in half lengthwise by the taxidermist to serve as an instructional aid evokes the author's purpose. For her idiosyncratic and fresh use of language here, McWilliam won the 1994 Guardian Fiction Prize.

About the Author:

Candia McWilliam was born in Edinburgh. She is the author of A Case of Knives (1988), which won a Betty Trask Prize, A Little Stranger (1989), Debatable Land (1994), which was awarded the Guardian Fiction Prize and its Italian translation the Premio Grinzane Cavour for the best foreign novel of the year, and a collection of stories Wait Till I Tell You (1997). In 2006 she began to suffer from the effects of blepharospasm and became functionally blind as a result. In 2009 she underwent an operation which harvested tendons from her leg in order to enable her to open her eyelids.Her most recent book is her critically acclaimed memoir, What to Look for in Winter.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury UK
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1408822997
• ISBN 13: 9781408822999
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224