The Deep Field: A Novel [Hardcover]

James Bradley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 9, 2000

One of Australia's "most ambitious and talented younger writers" (Sydney Morning Herald), delivers a gripping novel about a young woman's emotional awakening against the backdrop of global conflict and political chaosJames Bradley exploded onto the literary landscape in 1999 with the publication of his award-winning debut novel, Wrack. With his new novel, The Deep Field, Bradley demonstrates that he deserves the praise of reviewers who have compared him to Michael Ondaatje and Salman Rushdie.

The Deep Field introduces us to a brilliant young photographer named Anna Frazier, whose latest project is a photographic study of shell fossils called ammonites. At a museum in Sydney she meets Seth La Marque, a blind paleontologist who senses that Anna is hiding something from her past that has wounded her and made her shut down her emotions. Slowly, as they become friends and then lovers, Anna reveals her tumultuous and obsessive love affair with a Hong Kong-based financier and the painful ing that left her drained and empty. At the same time, her twin brother, Daniel, disappeared in China during a period of incredible upheaval and chaos, and Anna feels her life is on hold until she can find him. Set just over a decade from now, The Deep Field portrays a world very much like the present, yet subtly and unsettlingly different. At once steely and compassionate, it weaves elements of photography, science, and philosophy into a meditation on love, time, and loss.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Taking his title from an astronomical term for a "pinhole" in the sky through which deep space and time may be glimpsed, Australian writer Bradley (the multiple-prize-winning Wrack) presents an imaginative vision of the future in this ambitious, occasionally overwrought second novel. Narrated by a 300-year-old Australian woman who reimagines events just before her birth in 2012, the narrative focuses on photographer Anna Frasier, the narrator's mother, in a world shaken by cataclysmic political upheavals and plagued by disease. While visiting her mathematician twin brother, Daniel, in Hong Kong, Anna falls in love with Jared, a charming market trader. She renounces her life and career in Sydney to be with him, and the liaison endures for four years, but their time together is volatile, undermined by Anna's complicated relationship with Daniel. It is a period of ugly political confrontations between the Chinese government and democratic students, and when mainland Chinese tanks roll into Hong Kong, Daniel disappears and Anna leaves Jared. Anna's story resumes in Sydney a year later, where she undertakes a new project photographing fossil ammonites at the state museum. There, she meets blind, blunt-mannered paleontologist Seth LaMarque, who is able to soothe her troubled psyche. Their happiness is disrupted, however, by both societal unrest--Seth's sister, Rachel, a solicitor for the disenfranchised, is in the midst of it (and is the source of a major surprise at the novel's end)--and Anna's need to know her twin's fate. Bradley's supple prose is sonorously paced but, at times, his Proustian meditations on memory and love verge on the platitudinous, and metaphors and literary epigraphs pile up. Still, Bradley creates a convincing futuristic vocabulary and makes deft use of the language of fossil research and photography, proving himself a talented novelist with staying power.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Reviewers have compared Australian author Bradley, whose debut novel, Wrack (LJ 6/1/99), won two literary awards and was shortlisted for two others, to Salman Rushdie and Michael Ondaatje. His new novel, set ten years into the future, concerns a renowned photographer, Anna Frazier, whose latest project on shell fossils brings her into the life of Seth LaMarque, a blind paleontologist. Gradually, Anna reveals the scars of a previous love affair as well as her painful quest to solve the disappearance of her twin brother during civil strife in the Far East. Meditations on love, philosophy, and science interweave in this beautifully written tale, and surprises await the reader. The multilayered story is related by the couple's now-elderly daughter, whose origins are revealed to be more complicated than one first suspects. Packed with unique secondary characters, this is a truly evocative, highly atmospheric creation. Highly recommended for all collections.
-Margaret A. Smith, Grace A. Dow Memorial Lib., Midland, MI
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.; 1st edition (May 9, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805061118
• ISBN-13: 978-0805061116
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,212,020 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A new way of seeing, August 20, 2000

By 

Friederike Knabe (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Deep Field: A Novel (Hardcover)

Bradley's The Deep Field is a multi-faceted and multi-layered novel. Although set in the future, starting somewhere aound 2010 and going well beyond the next couple of centuries, the speculative fiction aspect of the book is an intriguing but not the most important aspect. It is part thriller, based around the disappearance of a soul-mate brother in the polical unrest in Hongkong, part social critique of the situation of street people and other outcasts in the near future. Finally, it is part romance and exploration of time, relationships and art. The most fascinating layer of this fully engrossing book is the evolving main character, a woman photograher, who step by step learns to see in completely new ways thanks to the growing influence over her by a blind paleontologist who sees with his hands and feels the history of life in ammonite fossils.

5.0 out of 5 stars James Bradley insightful, January 3, 2007

By 

Walter L. Mcghee (Toledo, OH United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: The Deep Field (Hardcover)

This is a book which I found provided much insight not only in historial terms but seems to connect well to current events. This not only encourages an understanding of historical perspective but also a deeper understanding of the Americans as seen by others.

3.0 out of 5 stars Some Potential in James Bradley, August 29, 2001

By 

Goner (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Deep Field: A Novel (Hardcover)

I agree with both of my fellow reviewers to some degree in that Mr. Bradley's potential would benefit greatly from a bit guidance on the the part of an editor and that the speculative fiction aspect of the book was provocative. (I'm sure if I had an editor I wouln't have written such a ridiculously long sentence) Anyway I enjoyed Bradley's use of language and bright vivd images to explain where the main charcter was in her life. I however didn't see any evidence of this being a thriller just because the brother is missing. All in all I would say it is more a story of a young woman's life and her struggle to reclaim it as such.