I loved this novel. I couldn’t sleep one night because I was trying to think of the right way to describe the way it reads. To me it feels as if the story has been uncovered, carefully dug from the earth and smoothed free of soil with the gentle strokes of an archaeological brush. Many stories feel pieced together, made – mine in particular – but this story feels as if it has been waiting to be set free of the rough unhewn marble.
I don’t want to suggest that everything felt perfect. Both the beginning and the end sounded awkwardly in my ears. The start seems self-conscious and I wanted more from the ending, but perhaps only because I’m greedy – I prefer suggestive endings and that of Strange Heart Beating is more suggestive, truer to the uncertainties of life, than final. However, the novel really is enticing. The hum of our most ancient stories plays quietly in the background, imprinting upon the modern story of pain and loss so that Seb’s grief – his wife Leda has just died, drowned after being knocked from her boat by a swan – deepens the groove in the floor of our understanding of what it is to feel love and loss; in the same way that Leda’s story replays old motifs to create a new song. Continue reading Strange Heart Beating by Eli Goldstone
Edie and Gnome are brother and sister. Or are they?
