Description
A masterclass in atmospheric suspense and domestic unease
It begins as an ordinary day of frayed nerves and suburban fractiousness. Following a sharp argument with his wife, Graham sets out across London with his young daughter, Jasmine. It is a journey born of a need for space - on the surface, a simple drive to clear the air.
But as they move through the city, the familiar begins to feel inexplicably foreign.
The motorways are tightening. The air is changing. On every screen, in every shop window, a recurring image of a remote island haunts the broadcast - an image that pulls Graham back toward a childhood he has tried to outrun.
As the horizon darkens and the path home becomes increasingly uncertain, Graham is forced to navigate the shifting boundary between a father's protective instinct and a world that is rapidly losing its grip on the known.
The Island is a devastatingly controlled novella from one of the UK's finest poets. It is a story of what remains when the structures of the everyday fall away: the memories we cannot escape, and the desperate, quiet love between a father and his child.
About the Author
Richard Price has published over a dozen books of poetry since his debut in 1993, including Lucky Day (2005), which was a Guardian Book of the Year and shortlisted for the Whitbread Poetry Prize. In 2013 Small World won the Creative Scotland Award for the Best Poetry Collection of that year. It was followed by another Guardian Book of the Year, Moon for Sale (2017). The Owner of the Sea (2021), re-telling Inuit stories, was a Scotsman Book of the Year. In the words of the poet Peter McCarey his poetry 'goes to work on all the major events of our small lives.' More recent works include Late Gifts, a braided work which ties consumerism's interaction with the environment to a narrative of a middle-aged father and his son. For over thirty years he was a curator and then manager of curators at the British Library, before becoming a freelance writer in 2024. He is a tutor at the Poetry School, London.
Book Information
ISBN 9781784634032
Author Richard Price
Format Paperback
Page Count 112
Imprint Salt Publishing
Publisher Salt Publishing
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 8mm
