Simon & Schuster, £16.99. Order at a discount from the Independent Online Shop
Archipelago, By Monique Roffey
After the flood: a perilous journey for human survival
Saturday 21 July 2012
The vulnerability of human beings subject to the vast forces of
nature is a theme at the heart of this engrossing novel, which
washes over the reader's imagination with the force of a tidal wave
as its protagonists embark on a perilous journey along the
Caribbean Sea. How do we survive when we lose our homes and
families? The question ebbs and flows throughout.
The novel opens in Trinidad, the author's birthplace, and explores what happens after a flood destroys the foundations of Gavin's world, ravaging his home and family. Gavin is left alone to care for his six-year-old daughter, Océan. Through the noise of the ferocious rain, another wailing can be heard – his daughter, whose grief, like his own, is raw.
Bewildered by her nightmares, he decides that a cure for their suffering is a journey. Gavin impulsively leaves Trinidad with his daughter and dog Suzy, on a voyage to the Galápagos. They set sail on a small boat called Romany, which gives Gavin hope – "his heart thrills just gazing at her". It becomes their temporary home, the sea both feared yet desired, able to hurt yet heal.
This is a haunting portrayal of the dangers and delights, trials and tribulations, of surviving in an archipelago. Roffey evocatively conjures the life and landscape of the Caribbean islands. Yet it is a novel not only about geographical but also emotional isolation. "But islands can only exist / If we have loved in them", wrote Derek Walcott, and indeed the most poignant passages recollect moments of love, memories no flood can destroy. "Yes, as everyone knows, meditation and water are wedded forever", wrote Herman Melville in Moby-Dick, a fitting epigraph to this novel which balances the intensity of raw emotion with a cooler, more meditative reflection on the nature of trauma. The further they sail from the tragedy, the closer they come to confronting it.
The novel broadens out from a family's pain to consider the island's wider historical hurt; how native people were traumatised, how long it takes to recuperate from being tortured: "Recovery takes time; it is the story of the still emerging Caribbean". The author of novels including the Orange Prize-shortlisted The White Woman on the Green Bicycle, Roffey here creates an incrementally powerful reflection on grief, an acute study of a father-daughter relationship, with a compelling account of climate change and a transformative journey. Putting experience through a sieve, the novel shows what remains in the heart when we have lost what we love, and the inner resources needed to rebuild a life from its ruins.
Arts & Ents blogs
Owen Howells: From the UK to Australia and back again (and again!)
Owen Howells is a DJ/producer who grew up in Australia but was born in the UK. He came back to the U...
Brighton Fringe 2013 – Is everyone sitting uncomfortably?
Fancy seeing a play about serial killers? How about inviting a funeral director into your home for a...
The Fall ‘Darkness Visible’ – Series 1, episode 2
There are a good many moments in the second episode of this psychological thriller that deserve refl...
-
Liam Gallagher slams Daft Punk: 'I could have written Get Lucky in an hour'
-
Rocky Horror star Tim Curry 'suffers major stroke'
-
After the flood: From Haiti to Britain, one man has captured the devastation of our increasingly deluged lands
-
Archaeologists uncover nearly 5,000 cave paintings in Burgos, Mexico
-
After 61 films, including The Hangover Part III, Heather Graham admits she still likes to boogie
- 1 What, let gays get married? We must be bonkers
- 2 Rocky Horror star Tim Curry 'suffers major stroke'
- 3 Exclusive: How MI5 blackmails British Muslims
- 4 EDL marches on Newcastle as attacks on Muslims increase tenfold in the wake of Woolwich machete attack which killed Drummer Lee Rigby
- 5 Farewell, Shameless. Your heirs have work to do
Get your summer started with British Military Fitness
BMF is the UK’s biggest and best loved outdoor fitness classes
Visit York
Find out what The Independent's resident travel expert has to say about one of the most beautiful small cities in the world
Making reading fun for kids
Nook is donating eReaders to volunteers at high-need schools and participating in exclusive events throughout the campaign.
Introducing the 'Get Reading' campaign
Get the latest on The Evening Standard's campaign to get London's children reading.
Enter the latest Independent competitions
Win anything from gadgets to five-star holidays on our competitions and offers page.
Business videos from commercial thought leaders
Watch the best in the business world give their insights into the world of business.
Johnny Marr talks relationships and reunions
In pictures: After the flood
Death becomes her: A very modern mortician
School of chop: Learning the art of butchery
The man who's eaten everywhere
A Berliner in 1963 – but did John F Kennedy once admire Adolf Hitler?


Comments