Sea Holly by Robert Minhinnick

Sea Holly

Robert Minhinnick

In a faded Welsh seaside resort at the fag end of summer, a set of drifters, loners and small crooks try to make sense of a schoolgirl's disappearance. Each has his own voice and his own tale, some vernacular and earthy, some elegiac and poetic. Expect no neat resolution: this is a world of shifting sand. Instead, let yourself be carried away by the tide of images and feelings.

Extract
China mugs of tea is what this place is. Faggots with vinegar and a scoop of mushy peas. Outstanding. Long live the mush. Perish the day when it's like everywhere else. Because believe me, we're the last of a kind. There's no doubting that. We're the last there is as far as this coast runs. The only reason we're still here is that we're bloody remote. Stuck out here. Out on our own behind our reef. Out on The Caib. Out at the end of our peninsula. In the kaarst and the chaos and the ineluctable limestone where the currents run deadly and our drowned are an unreckonable myriad.
Parallels
  • Landor's Tower by Iain Sinclair
  • Indelible Acts by A L Kennedy
  • The Estuary by Tessa West