Dancing With Mermaids

Gibson, Miles

ISBN 10: 0525244441 / ISBN 13: 9780525244448

Published by Dutton, 1986

About this Item

New York. 1986. Dutton. 1st American Edition. Very Good in Dustjacket. 0525244441. 196 pages. hardcover. Jacket painting by Hilary Gibson. Jacket design by Mark O'Connor. keywords: Europe England Literature World Literature. DESCRIPTION - In the little, normal-seeming town of Rams Horn, once famous for its healing mud and its fine fossil bed, wreathed in legends and close to the poisonous swamps that mark the mouth of the River Sheep, things are decidedly abnormal: a seer who has waited years for her drowned husband to appear is suddenly besieged by her own demons; an African sailor arrives from the sea to ravage and plunder the widow and her daughter who have (unwittingly?)sheltered him; a group of small boys plot kidnapping and sexual violation; a doctor, unhinged by his desire for the voluptuous seer, turns to a medicine older than his own for a cure. There is lust, madness, a disappearance - we might be on the edge of tragedy or chaos. But because of the uncanny skill and vision of the author, we have instead a fabulous brew of mystery, sex and fairy-tale enchantment that leaves the reader smiling, uplifted, overjoyed: indeed, dancing with mermaids. Miles Gibson has worked a miracle of style and craft. DANCING WITH MERMAIDS is a book of dreams - dreams great writers sometimes get on midsummer nights. inventory #25276.

Seller Inventory # z25276

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Dancing With Mermaids
• Publisher: Dutton
• Publication Date: 1986
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0525244441
• ISBN 13: 9780525244448
• Binding: hardcover
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Very Good in Dustjacket
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

Book by Gibson, Miles

Reviews

After finishing the brief first chapter of this novel, which describes the small English seaside village of Rams Horn, one knows that a special reading experience is at hand. Gibson's book reads like a prose Under Milk Wood , moving from one strange character and incident to another and using a vibrant, electric prose that occasionally alternates with a beautiful, dreamlike passage or poetic description, a "whispering movement of water and shadows." Tom Crow, Matthew Mark Luke Saint John, Mrs. Clancy, the childrenSmudger, Sickly, and VernieDr. Douglas, Mrs. Reynolds, the idiot girl: they're all part of a comic, tragic, chaotic, erotic world where sea and land, fantasy and reality mingle. Previously published in England, this is a very fine work that public libraries should consider acquiring. Thomas Lavoie, formerly with English Dept., Syracuse Univ., N.Y.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.