Crustaceans [Hardcover]

Andrew Cowan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 20, 2002

It’s December and there is one foot of snow. Paul, the narrator, is driving east to the seaside in the imaginary company of his son, Euan, whose sixth birthday this would have been. As he drives, and later as he wanders the coast, Paul assembles in detail the fragments of a life that seemed to have ended with Euan’s. In this beautifully modulated, heart-rending novel, Andrew Cowan fathoms the relationship between a parent and child, as seen through the eyes of a man struggling to come to terms with his life and losses as both father and son. All the more powerful for its delicacy and restraint, this is a novel that resonates in the mind long after the last page.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

An unspecified tragedy shadows this quietly poignant novel, which unfolds in flashbacks as its narrator drives toward the English coast on a snowy December day. Paul, a potter, is mentally addressing his young son, Euan, as he drives, telling his own history and also remembering the first five and a half years of Euan's life. As a boy, Paul is brought up by his father, a self-absorbed sculptor; his mother killed herself when Paul was Euan's age. His grandmother and grandfather offer him a kind of shelter, but not until he meets his future wife, Ruth, in art school is he the recipient of true affection. With a clear and lucid eye, Cowan limns a collection of short, significant moments in Paul's life, which define him as a man, lover and father. Like many men, Paul measures the value and richness of his life against the lives of his father and grandfather, seeking both similarities and differences that could yield up new revelations in his existential quest. If Cowan (Pig; Common Ground) sometimes lulls the reader with cozy, tender vignettes like snapshots in a dog-eared photo album, there's a mounting sense of dread throughout, leading to a terrifying scene of sudden loss. While the source of Paul's frenzied grief can be intuited early on, the ambiguous ending comes close to melodrama. Even so, the reader's attention is captured not so much by one significant moment as by the narrative's accumulated force and momentum, which, as in life, overwhelms and makes this book memorable and engrossing. (Mar.)Forecast: Like his compatriots Helen Dunmore and Margot Livesey, Cowan excels at crafting haunting domestic tales, and his latest novel will attract readers with an appreciation for intimate, finely wrought fiction.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Paul is a talented potter who nevertheless molds his crockery with the same ambivalence that has shaped his lonely life. He is the son of a well-known sculptor who fashions his art from blocks of steel and has nothing to offer in the way of fatherly comfort. Each man bears a strong resemblance to his material of choice. His father is cold and unyielding, while Paul begins life as pliable as clay and matures into a man riddled with cracks. The novel begins with Paul taking inventory of his life on what would have been his dead son's sixth birthday. Paul has taken to heavy drinking and smoking, wandering from place to place as he revisits the places he shared with his beloved boy. Cowan takes the reader inside the mind of a mourning man and conveys the emotions behind Paul's memories so vividly that it feels very much like being led through an eerie maze of hazy corridors. This novel is a journey through sadness, ironically awakening a bittersweet yearning to embrace life. Elsa Gaztambide
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Picador; First Edition edition (March 20, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312283105
• ISBN-13: 978-0312283100
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,045,546 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Sad lives and deaths, March 29, 2004

By 

Manola Sommerfeld (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Crustaceans (Hardcover)

Paul is the narrator. Every chapter alternates from one timeline to the other. First chapter tells of Paul starting a pilgrimage of sorts on what would have been the 6th birthday of his dead son. He is going to the seaside town where he died, and where Paul lived some of the few moments of happiness in his life. Chapter 2 reels back to his days in art school, where he met his wife Ruth, and where his days of true happiness began. Paul had a very sad childhood, among secrets and hidden feelings, his mother dead and his father emotionally absent. The death of his son gives Paul an opportunity to reflect on his losses. As tragic as his pilgrimage is, it ends up on what to me sounds like a hopeful note of acceptance.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An intimate journey, July 9, 2002

By 

Debbie Lee Wesselmann (the Lehigh Valley, PA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Crustaceans (Hardcover)

Andrew Cowan's newest novel begins in sadness: the narrator Paul addresses his dead son Euan with a muted sorrow that finds the beauty in the most simple of scenes. This quietly emotional novel continues on a journey of the past to explore Paul's relationship with Euan as well as with others integral to his life, including his own father. Illuminated by his grief for Euan, Paul's life comes into sharp focus as the author leads the reader inexorably to the conclusion.

This is a purely literary work, recommended for those who love language and the meanings of gestures, who like to discover greater truths through the details of ordinary lives. Cowan's prose is lyrical yet clear, at times self-conscious but always impressive. His abundant talents for literary fiction are on full display in this book. However, if you are searching for an uplifting book with a compelling plot, I recommend that you look elsewhere.