Signals of Distress: A Novel

by Jim Crace

Overview

Signals of Distress tells the story of an American emigration vessel grounded off the coast of England in the 1830's. While the Belle of Wilmington waits to be refloated, the isolated community of Wherrytown offers what hospitality it can to the crew, but the Americans prove to be a disturbing presence. A brilliantly imagined historical fiction about emigration, dislocation, and the price of liberty, this novel confirms Crace's reputation as a writer who is gifted almost beyond belief.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466805637
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	01/01/2005
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	289
Sales rank:	202,452
File size:	561 KB

About the Author

Jim Crace is the author of seven other novels, including Being Dead, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction, and, most recently, Genesis. He lives in Birmingham, England.

Editorial Reviews

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 navely 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. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

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"

Library Journal

In November 1837, a steamer deposits Aymer Smith in Wherrytown, a remote village in coastal England. Aymer represents his family's London soap-making company, which will no longer need the kelp that has been harvested here for generations: a new industrial process will provide the sodium carbonate needed for the soap and do so faster and cheaper. Aymer feels that it is his moral duty to break this news personally to his suppliers. At the same time, an American sailing ship runs aground near Wherrytown, and the ship's crew moves ashore to await repairs on their craft. The captain of the sailing ship and Aymer form an immediate dislike as the captain accuses Aymer of stealing his dog (unfairly) and emancipating his slave (fairly). Aymer, a confirmed bachelor, unexpectedly finds himself attracted first to the daughter of one of the kelpers, then to a young newlywed awaiting passage on the sailing ship. The clash of the American and English cultures, the pastoral and industrial worlds, religion and skepticism, capitalism and rural socialism are all played out in this intricately detailed, beautifully realized novel.

George Needham