the living sea of waking dreams by richard flanagan

Its intensity, urgency, and insights are unforgettable. Juxtaposing measured prose with passages that jolt and tumble, and realistic depictions of medical issues with Francie’s phantasmagoric visions (“the mountain plains outside her window full of fires and sandstorms where, nightly, women queued in one area for abortions and in another for orgies, where fleeing people turned into plants only to perish in flames”), Flanagan’s novel illuminates the dangers of taking the world and one another for granted. This is Booker Prize-winning novelist Richard Flanagan at his most movingand astonishingbest. Amid all of these losses, her complacency about her once rewarding life vanishes. The Living Sea of Waking Dreams is an ember storm of a novel. Though she sees the body parts of others disappearing, too (her 22-year-old son gradually fades away to a few fingers), no one comments or reports on the eerie phenomenon. Meanwhile, Anna’s left ring finger painlessly but inexplicably vanishes, soon followed by a kneecap and a nipple. Francie begins hallucinating as the increasingly invasive interventions fail, and despite Francie’s delusions, which come through when Francie musters the energy to speak, Anna finds new tenderness in her time with her mother. Guilt-ridden over her earlier neglect of her family and unprepared to face her mother’s mortality, Anna instead sides with their younger brother, Terzo, and orders aggressive treatment. After Francie suffers a catastrophic brain hemorrhage, Anna’s older brother Tommy, an unsuccessful artist who has been shouldering Francie’s care, hopes to let her die in peace. Amid the fires, 56-year-old Anna, an award-winning Sydney architect, makes reluctant trips to Hobart, Tasmania, to check on her mother, Francie. 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars. Goldsboro exclusive signed and limited numbered edition (250) with sprayed edges, Hardcover, 240 pages. Man Booker winner Flanagan ( The Narrow Road to the Deep North) shines in his fierce, surrealistic look at a family’s dissolution in a recognizable if dystopian Australia that’s ravaged by wildfires. The Living Sea of Waking Dreams (Hardcover) Published January 14th 2021 by Chatto & Windus.

The living sea of waking dreams by richard flanagan