Fiction
5 x 7.5, 160 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1-59766-036-5
Cloth: $19.95 |
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Ireland is known throughout the world for its rich and vibrant storytelling. Josie Gray is a proud inheritor of this tradition, a yarn-spinner whose evocative stories are steeped in the rural Irish community to which he belongs. Captivated by his tales, acclaimed poet Tess Gallagher worked with Gray to give the oral versions written form. The result is a memorable collection that preserves the intimacy, melody, and rhythm of Gray’s voice. Beautifully illustrated with specially commissioned linocuts, Barnacle Soup is a lyrical feast for all those who love hearing and reading stories.
Born on the shores of Lough Arrow, Josie Gray has worked as a fruit salesman, barman, farmer, and hauler of fruit, sand, and gravel. He started painting in the mid-1990s and has exhibited in Ireland and the United States. In his retirement he fishes, gardens, paints, and continues to tell the odd story.
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Tess Gallagher—poet, essayist, and writer of short stories—was born in Port Angeles, Washington. She has published seven distinguished collections of poetry, most recently Dear Ghosts, (2006). Distant Rain, an unusual accordion-style volume that reproduces a conversation between Gallagher and novelist Jakuchō Setouchi, appeared in 2006 from Eastern Washington University Press.
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“Reading Barnacle Soup, I was seized with the delightful and simultaneous impulse to clutch this book tightly to my chest, and yet also to share it with everyone I know. I’m so grateful to Josie Gray and Tess Gallagher for these intensely place-based stories of bright-burning souls.”
—Rick Bass, author of The Lives of Rocks
“This is a most unordinary kind of book. Josie Gray can tell stories. When he speaks about a dog, I would like to touch that dog. When he writes about a song, I would like to sing that song. This is what I call a good story.”
—Haruki Murakami, author of After Dark
“Gray and Gallagher collude and collogue to produce stories full of deadpan and deadly accurate wit.”
—Ciaran Carson, author of Shamrock Tea
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