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Galore

A Novel

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

When a whale beaches itself on the shore of the remote coastal town of Paradise Deep, the last thing any of the townspeople expect to find inside it is a man, silent and reeking of fish but remarkably alive. The discovery of this mysterious person, soon christened Judah, sets the town scrambling for answers as its most prominent citizens weigh in on whether he is man or beast, blessing or curse, miracle or demon. Though Judah is a shocking addition, the town of Paradise Deep is already full of unusual characters. King-me Sellers, self-appointed patriarch, has it in for an inscrutable woman known only as Devine's Widow, with whom he has a decades-old feud. Her granddaughter, Mary Tryphena, is just a child when Judah washes ashore but finds herself tied to him all her life in ways she never expects. Galore is the story of the saga that develops between these families, full of bitterness and love, spanning two centuries.

With Paradise Deep, award-winning novelist Michael Crummey imagines a realm in which the line between the everyday and the otherworldly is impossible to discern. Sprawling and intimate, stark and fantastical, Galore is a novel about the power of stories to shape and sustain us.

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    • AudioFile Magazine
      Crummey's captivating generations-long novel is set in a bleak region of Labrador. The grim but fanciful atmosphere is deepened by a collection of idiosyncratic and colorfully named denizens. John Lee's rich Scots brogue lends an even more fable-like quality to the proceedings. His reading is full of wonder and, at the same time, complete acceptance of Crummey's characters, despite their many foibles, willfulness, and self-destructive natures. In this isolated, frozen land, resentments over real and imagined slights are borne and nursed for years, predictably exploding every so often, with wide repercussions. Lee reads without judgment, evoking an appreciation of the fathomlessness of human interaction. M.O. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from January 3, 2011
      Crummey (River Thieves) returns readers to historic Newfoundland in his mythic and gorgeous latest, set over the course of a century in the life of a hardscrabble fishing community. After a lean early-19th-century winter, a whale beaches itself and everyone in town gathers to help with the slaughter. But when a woman known only as Devine's Widow—when she's not called an outright witch—cuts into the belly, the body of an albino man slides out. He eventually revives, turns out to be a mute, and is dubbed Judah by the locals. Judah's mystery—is his appearance responsible for the great fishing season that follows?—is only one among many in this wild place, where the people are afflicted by ghosts and curses as much as cold and hunger. Crummey's survey eventually telescopes to the early 20th century, when Judah's pale great-grandson, Abel, sequesters himself amid medical debris in an old hospital where his opera singer cousin, Esther Newman, has returned and resolved to drink herself to death. But before she does so, she shares with him the family history he never knew. Crummey lovingly carves out the privation and inner intricacies that mark his characters' lives with folkloric embellishments and the precision of the finest scrimshaw.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      July 25, 2011
      Along the northern coast of Newfoundland, a mute albino man emerges from the belly of a beached humpback whale. As the mystery man, christened Judah by the locals, settles into Paradise Deep, many questions persist, among them: will the stranger bring death or life to the remote village? Spanning two centuries, the novel charts the lives of Judah and his neighbors, documenting their stories of love and lossâsome of which involve ghosts, mermaids, and the similarly unreal. The book's non-linear structure and lack of a main conflict or protagonist may prove challenging to some listeners. Although John Lee's narration, with his unrecognizable accent, gives the story an appropriately mythic and eerie tone, his cadence and lilting inflection often add to listener confusion, making it difficult to determine when characters enter and exit a scene. This intriguing story might be better suited to book form, as listeners may end up getting hopelessly lost in the severe and fantastic world of Paradise Deep. An Other paperback.

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