The Sooterkin [Paperback]

Tom Gilling (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 31, 2001

The action in Tom Gilling's wickedly funny, magical novel, The Sooterkin, revolves around the bizarre birth of a child who appears to be more seal than human. As the extraordinary news spreads through the penal colony of Van Diemen's Land (present-day Tasmania) during the winter of 1821, mystified residents flock to investigate. The local reverend hypothesizes a virgin birth, but the town's resident science "expert" suspects that the pup may be akin to the mysterious sooterkin-a monstrous, mythical creature born to women in Holland. In spite of its unusual physiology, the child's mother and brother accept the family's newest member and protect it from the clutches of outsiders, who want to exploit the sooterkin baby for profit. In the tradition of The Secret of Roan Inish, The Sooterkin is the perfect summertime fairy tale.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

On July 14, 1821, on a small island off the coast of Australia, Sarah Dyer gives birth to a "thing the size of a weasel, wet and slippery and covered in fur." Rumor spreads that the creature is a sooterkin--"a monstrous animal, with a hooked snout, fiery, sparkling eyes, a long neck and the stump of a tail"--but closer inspection reveals the newborn as none other than a seal pup, whom Sarah names Arthur. In Australian journalist Gilling's droll and engaging first novel, a bestseller Down Under, the seal pup's appearance--while cause for wonder--is not quite cause for alarm. The town's minister, Mr. Kidney, writes about the event: "we are a colony, so inured to the Unnatural that the Natural itself seems wondrous and terrible." This imaginative story doesn't confine itself to a single narrator or hero; rather, the entire population of the island acts as the true protagonist. Included in the community of convicts, debtors, itinerants and rebels are the drunken Mr. Kidney, nursing hopes that his service will cancel his debts, and the midwife Mrs. Jakes, who was expelled from England for performing illegal abortions. Sarah Dyer is a convict, and her older son, Ned, is a talented pickpocket and petty thief. But when someone captures Arthur, the long-dormant moral outrage of the island is at last incited, and a search team is sent out to recover the pup before he's killed for his pelt or sold to the circus. Gilling's island is a Dickensian, scatological, violent world in which people are as likely to steal as to pay, to cheat as to pray. Shifting points of view and the plot's decentered trajectory make for a sometimes disjointed read, but this unlikely setting acts like a hothouse for the miraculous, showcasing people's unusual and even heartwarming ability to embrace the strange. (June)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

The unusual title is only a hint of what is to come in this extraordinary book. In 1821, a village in Australia is thrown into shock when a woman gives birth to a male childDwho resembles a seal pup more than a human infant. While the local authorities try to determine if the birth is authentic or an attempt to con the community, the mother names the newborn Arthur and treats him as if he were any other child. His older brother, Ned, is entrusted with daily visits to the ocean shore where the pup can splash and frolic. Father William spends most of his time in the local pubs, figuring out how he can work this situation to his best advantage. First-time novelist Gilling shows a sharp and clever sense of humor as he introduces us to this microcosm of quirky characters. First published in Australia to great acclaim, this fantastical story is not going to appeal to all readers but should find a following in the libraries where authors like Alice Hoffman, Sherman Alexie, or Gabriel Garc!a M rquez are popular.DKaren Traynor, Sullivan Free Lib., NY
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (July 31, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0141002018
• ISBN-13: 978-0141002019
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,057,985 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Australian Fairy Tale, August 7, 2000

By 

mandy higa (HONOLULU, HI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Sooterkin (Hardcover)

A true Fairy Tale gives a glimpse of the psyche that no other literary form can reveal. Modern Fairy tale exponents are rare but wonderfully talented beings: Mark Helprin, author of Soldier of the Great War and the Winter's Tale; Alice Hoffman author of Practical Magic and Second Nature. Add to this elite list the name of Tom Gilling, author of The Sooterkin, an amazing tale of early convict times in Van Dieman's Land, Australia. As in all the best fairy tales Mr. Gilling gives us a magical, mysterious land beneath the grit and filth of a convict colony. His characters are truly endearing, especially Ned and his baby seal brother Arthur. When the seal baby, the Sooterkin, Arthur, is borne to convict Sarah Dyer, it seems every slimey, sleazy boozer in Hobart Town is out to take advantage of these innocents: The erst while Father, drunkard Walter Dyer, is ready to sell his monsterous child to the highest bidder; the church, in the person of the dissipated Reverend Kidney would prefer to bury the baby seal as an abortion or an infancide rather acknowledge an embarrassment by or to God, and the Naturalist Society swings from scientific curiousity to, by the end of the book, a minimalist form of caring. With a clear eye Mr. Gilling looks at a day to day environment that should crush all human kindness from the stained surviors souls - but instead leads to a triumph of the human spirit. Ned's love for his brother doesn't conquer all adversity and despair but it gives us a lasting glimmer of hope, and helps us to see how such a self-reliant, humorous nation arose from 'The Stain' of its grim convict beginnings. Or, as Mr. Gilling has one of his more Dickensinian characters remark, "Suffice it to say that such remarkable Fertility, wrenched from the Barrenness of Sorrow, must instil great Hopes for the Survival and Prosperity of this beleaguered Colony." My hope is that Mr. Gilling's talent will thrive and prosper down under, and that he will again give the world another candle of hope like the endearing Sooterkin. Good on ya, mate.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great fun!, August 14, 2000

By 

Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
(COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Sooterkin (Hardcover)

If you are looking for a well written book that is startling and just plain fun to read, this may be it! After all, how many authors are there who dare to begin with the opening sentence, "Pardon the stench," then go on to describe in graphic horror the slaughter of the whales in Hobart Town, while chastising you for not arriving sooner, "when you would have smelt eucalyptus blossom and lavender." Obviously playing with the reader from the opening page, Gilling is so entertaining with his story that the reader plays along, too, delightedly participating in this wild, carnival experience.

When a strange, seal-like offspring is "born" to a former convict woman in Van Dieman's Land, now Tasmania, everyone gets in on the action. Thought by some residents to be a sooterkin, a kind of goblin, we see that the creature, "Arthur," is a brother to Ned, a meal ticket for his larcenous mother, who sells peeks at him, and a source of much curiosity to the townspeople. Poking fun at everyone's views of reality, Gilling here satirizes all levels of Tasmanian society, from the local pamphleteer, who declares that if it looks like a seal and acts like a seal that it is a seal, to the Reverend Kidney, who tries to find a place for it in the theological chain of being. And since we readers do not know, for sure, exactly what the creature is, we become willing and amused participants in the author's greatest joke of all--on us.

In prose that is perfectly suited to his broad but light-hearted satire, Gilling keeps the reader constantly entertained with his terse descriptions and ironic detachment. To the question of what it is like to be kissed by a seal pup, for example, he answers tersely, "It's like nuzzling tripe. Or blowing your nose on a stinging nettle." A short novel with bold and offbeat humor, startling imagery, and unforgettable action scenes, Sooterkin will amuse anyone looking for a literary change of pace.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars whata surreal book, September 15, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Sooterkin (Paperback)

this book was recommended by a friend and it is the best book i have read for a long tim. its tragic and funny and just wicked. happy reading