The Stream - Hardcover

Clarke, Brian; Goddard, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1840371862 ISBN 13: 9781840371864

Publisher: Swan Hill Press, 2001

Synopsis

This novel follows the dramatic events that result when creatures able to act by instinct fall victim to a man-made environmental disaster. The author has been awarded the BP Natural World Book Prize for the year 2000, presented at a ceremony at the Natural History Museum, London.

About this title

About the Author:

Brian Clarke writes for 'The Times' on fish, fishing and the aquatic environment and has been the subject of a major BBC film for his work on trout behaviour. He is also a travel writer, and specialises in wildlife and wilderness subjects. He has published several non-fiction books, most recently 'Trout etcetera', a collection of his journalism and essays. The double-award winning 'The Stream' is his first novel. Brian Clarke lives in Hampshire.

From Publishers Weekly:

The creatures of a pristine valley stream struggle against the changes wrought by the construction of an industrial park in Clarke's debut novel, which documents the deterioration of a rural ecosystem in poignant detail. After a ponderous opening that describes the forces of nature in wooden prose, Clarke hits his stride as he interweaves the story of the stream's denizens with the story of the machinations behind, and protests against, the park's development. The human characters are forgettable stereotypes, ranging from a corporate activist trying to save the stream to the various executives of Cogent Electronics, the British firm underwriting the industrial project. But the dilemma of the various animals and insects is described in loving, painstaking detail, as Clarke chronicles the demise of the local trout and salmon, then works his way down to the plight faced by mayflies as their environment is overrun with chokeweed and silt. As a work of fiction, Clarke's book is deeply flawed: the animal passages are repetitious, and the human characters severely underdeveloped. But as a naturalistic treatise, this narrative works because it brings home the interdependence of the various animals and their helplessness as their world is altered and they are destroyed. The novelistic blemishes may put off mainstream readers, but the book should find admirers among fans of environmental fiction.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Swan Hill Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1840371862
• ISBN 13: 9781840371864
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1