Eye Lake

(Paperback)

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Description

"Hughes is a very good writer, if 'good writing' has to do with precision, eloquence, beauty, and passionately held belief."Times Literary Supplement

Welcome to Crooked River, population 2,851 and falling.

Eli has lived in Crooked River his whole life, ever since he was born in the dead of winter with the cord wrapped around his neck nearly thirty years ago, and he knows better than anyone about that shrinking number. His father, uncle, and grandmother have all died, he didn't know his mother, and his grandfather, Clarence, founder of the town and eccentric builder of hotels and a now-underwater castle, walked to the river one day and never returned. Eli's childhood best friend, George, went missing, too, when they were kids, around the time his dad started going a little bonkers, and George was never seen again.

Eli's always been obsessed with Clarence and George's disappearances. Now, while the town half-heartedly celebrates its centennial and the river, long ago diverted to make way for a mine, reclaims its original path, Eye Lake is vanishing day by day. As new tensions in town rise and the lake's water level drops, Clarence's castleand his many secretsbegin to surface.

But when another young boy goes missing, Eli's past and present collide.

Tristan Hughes is the author of three previous books: The Tower, Send My Cold Bones Home, and Revenant. He was the winner of the 2002 Rhys Davies Short Story Award. He lives in Wales.

Reviews

'Eye Lake is a sturdy and ... compelling novel, ripe with luminous prose and well-sustained metaphor, a fine investigation of isolation, work, family, the Canadian pioneer spirit and the doomed communities that linger in opportunitys wake.' National Post 'Hughes has done an exquisite job plotting Eye Lake, but this is only a small part of the novels pleasures ...[A] deeply satisfying read.' Quill and Quire 'Rarely has there been a more endearing storyteller ... [Hughes's]story of a small town growing and declining on the whims of a few outsize personalities also is the story of families, boom to bust.' Minneapolis Star Tribune 'Fittingly for 2012, folded within the seemingly simple narratives of Hughes novel, is a lovely rumination on what it means for the world to end, however small that world may be.' THIS magazine 'Hughes is a very good writer, if "good writing" has to do with precision, eloquence, beauty and passionately held belief.' Times Literary Supplement (on Revenant) 'A provocative exploration of the difficulty of leaving childhood behind, and about how being treated like an outsider all your life will leave you with a tragic sense of entitlement.' The Walrus (on Revenant)
'Eye Lake is a sturdy and ... compelling novel, ripe with luminous prose and well-sustained metaphor, a fine investigation of isolation, work, family, the Canadian pioneer spirit and the doomed communities that linger in opportunitys wake.' National Post 'Hughes has done an exquisite job plotting Eye Lake, but this is only a small part of the novels pleasures ...[A] deeply satisfying read.' Quill and Quire 'Rarely has there been a more endearing storyteller ... [Hughes's]story of a small town growing and declining on the whims of a few outsize personalities also is the story of families, boom to bust.' Minneapolis Star Tribune 'Fittingly for 2012, folded within the seemingly simple narratives of Hughes novel, is a lovely rumination on what it means for the world to end, however small that world may be.' THIS magazine 'Hughes is a very good writer, if "good writing" has to do with precision, eloquence, beauty and passionately held belief.' Times Literary Supplement (on Revenant) 'A provocative exploration of the difficulty of leaving childhood behind, and about how being treated like an outsider all your life will leave you with a tragic sense of entitlement.' The Walrus (on Revenant)

Author Bio

Tristan Hughes was born in Atikokan, Ontario, and brought up around Llangoed, Ynys Mon, in Wales, where he currently lives. Hughes is the author of three previous books: The Tower, Send My Cold Bones Home and Revenant. He was the winner of the 2002 Rhys Davies Short Story Award. Eye Lake, published by Picador in the U.K., is his fourth novel.