Signals of Distress: A Novel [Paperback]

Jim Crace (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 9, 2004

November, 1836. A fierce gale beaches an American sail ship off the English coast, injuring an African slave below decks and eventually disgorging 300 head of cattle and rowdy American sailors into a hardscrabble fishing village. The same storm drives into port a steamer, bearing one Aymer Smith, the foolish well-intentioned prig who will deprive the town of its livelihood, free the African slave, and set into motion a whole series of unforeseeable, tragicomic events. One of the most seductive and surprising novelist at work today, once again creates a richly strange and believable world, uncannily familiar to our own.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A diversity of imaginative settings distinguishes the work of this brilliant British writer, who has portrayed various historical periods in such outstanding novels as The Gift of Stones and Arcadia. The background of this engrossing narrative is a hardscrabble fishing village on the English coast in the 1830s; with his usual dexterity, Crace has evoked the time, place and characters with an astute and ironic eye. When the Belle of Wilmington founders off the shore of Wherrytown, events ensue that embrace both high comedy and foreshadowed tragedy. The steamer's American captain and a crew that includes the African slave Otto take lodging in the village, where another stranger has arrived: priggish, verbose, effete, obtuse Aymer Smith has come to bring the bad news that his family's soap manufacturing company will no longer need the soda ash that country people salvage from kelp. A foolish man despite his moral principles and good intentions, Aymer frees Otto in the name of emancipation, but without consideration of the man's future in the frostbitten countryside. Aymer's moral indignation is no match for the machinations of the local agent, cunning Walter Howells, who outsmarts him at every turn and puts a plot in motion to sully Aymer's name and maybe break his skull. Meanwhile, Aymer naively pursues love among the townspeople and the scattered settlers in the surrounding rural area, blundering in every way. Crace masterfully deploys his poetic descriptive powers: on a brine-bloated drowned body, Aymer spying on a woman on a chamber pot, a midnight fishing crew awash in a "gasping multitude" of pilchards, a clutch of hopeful emigrants boarding ship for Canada. Though small in scale, the narrative offers a glimpse of the social fabric of the mid-19th century, with its mixture of ingrained customs and superstitions and the new scientific theories ("the tussling spirits of the age") in the air. Filtered through character motivations that include farcical misunderstandings, poignant self-delusions, wily chicanery, false hopes and true love, this novel about people dislocated from their milieu fixes a mesmerizing grip on the reader's imagination.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

As Crace's fine new novel opens, two ships arrive at the isolated English coastal community of Wherrytown: the Belle of Wilmington, an American vessel that has run aground in a storm, and the Ha'proth of Tar, a steampacket that carries Aymer Smith from the safety of London to convey bad news to the town's citizens. His family's firm no longer needs the kelp ash it has been buying from the town to make soap, and the priggish Smith feels duty-bound to inform the citizens in person. He also feels duty-bound to assist in the escape of the Belle's cook, a black slave, and to offer to marry the nubile Miggy Bowe. But Miggy has fallen for one of the American sailors and plans to leave with him when the Belle is patched up. Everyone works at cross-purposes in this subtly disturbing work, and few good intentions go unpunished. Crace has once again succeeded at creating a community far removed from our everyday world (see, for instance, the Stone Age village of The Gift of Stones, LJ 4/1/89) and making it real, vivid, and indelible. The result is a quiet, thoughtful work that pulls the reader in powerfully. Highly recommended.?Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Picador (December 9, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312424426
• ISBN-13: 978-0312424428
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,894,879 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Painful and unstoppable, September 23, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Signals Of Distress (Paperback)

The excruciating detail with which Crace describes each event and each stretch of English coast are but the beginning of this book's power. His unflinching portrait of the lives of his characters leaves no corner unturned. With the smallest of observations, worlds begin to shift and characters head towards inevitable decline or ascent. Aymer Smith is an almost unbearably painful creation. He is at once utterly sympathetic and detestable. He seems to be the sum total of every self-conscious fear a modern liberal might have. We watch him with compassion and fear and horror and smugness. And those with whom he comes into contact are drawn no less sparingly. There is not one character one would hope to be, and yet we may see ourselves in pieces of each of them. This kind of writing and acuity grip the reader from the opening gale and refuse to let go as we squirm to avoid knowing the end of Aymer's story. Wonderful and terrible.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best books I've read(and I was an English major!), March 10, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Signals Of Distress (Paperback)

The beautiful J.M.W. Turner painting on the cover of this book really suits it--an eerie balance of cheery and grim. The setting inevitably reminds one of Dickens, and even the characters seem Dickens-inspired up to a point, with names like Alice Yapp, Palmer Dolly, and Preacher Phipps. But the language is decidedly more modern and the characters, in the end, much more complex, with the possible exception of Fidia Smith, who is so fastidious as to place a napkin over her mauled brother-in-law's feet as he is carried through her house. The brother-in-law, Aymer Smith, is the book's protagonist, and is, as the copy on the back cover states, "a foolish well-intentioned prig." He is gullible, horny, and weepy by turns, utterly scrutable in the most loveable way. He is a lonely loner whose best efforts at connection with other people always seem to be thwarted by his good intentions. He is a staunch and outspoken abolitionist, which seems to annoy everyone in this small English town, since slavery is outlawed and the general attitude is "Why the hell do you want to talk about it then?" But Smith's greatest signifying act is to secretly set free an African slave who is cargo on an American ship wrecked in the town's harbor. The African, Otto, disappears entirely from the story, except in the superstitious-racist minds of the town, who happily blame all unusual or undesirable occurrences on his appeareance in their world. The novel comes to a grinding, hair-raising halt in a whirlwind of desparation, violence, and, ultimately, eerie silence. This is a great book for any reader of fiction, whether or not you have any interest in things nautical/historical/British. Its brilliant character portraiture, quirky plot twists, ghosty morality, and many Truly Weird and Interesting Moments make it a top-notch novel that deserves a lot more attention

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I look forward with pleasure to reading more of this author, October 17, 2001

By 

David H. Myers (Fremont, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Signals Of Distress (Paperback)

I was uncertain choosing this at the library. The Atlantic Monthly review of this book compared the author to "the best" literary Brits: Salman Rushdie (no interest), Ian McEwan ("ominous" writing for others, flat to me) and Martin Amis (dreary). Now I am so glad I did! This book is wonderfully atmospheric, similar to Island by Jane Rodgers but less dark, and I was hooked immediately. As the characters are introduced they are wonderfully rooted in time and place. And Aymer Smith the main character is a real achievement: a contemptibly dishonest windbag yet pathetically human and somehow sympathetic. The puzzle of what this character represented for the author and what he was going to do with him, finally wouldn't let me put the book down. Highest recommendation!