River Meets the Sea
A Novel
Published on 13. July 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
320 pages
978-1-4870-1142-0 (ISBN)
Description
A spellbinding, spirited tale of two men exploring masculinity, race, and belonging in a desperate search to feel at home in their own skins.
An enthralling nautical epic, River Meets the Sea traces the dual timelines of a white-passing Indigenous foster child in 1940s Vancouver and a teenage immigrant in the suburbs of Nanaimo in the 1970s.
A natural-born storyteller, Ronny is a left-handed "alley mutt" without a birth certificate who searches for his mother everywhere - most powerfully, he hears her voice in the surging Sto:lo River. Born in the middle of the ocean on a merchant ship departing Sri Lanka, Chandra is a Tamil boy with "skin like a charred eggplant" who finds his haven from the pressure to assimilate by swimming and surfing in the Salish Sea.
Moving gracefully between these parallel stories like a wave, the novel traces the seemingly separate lives of these sensitive young men and their everlasting connections to water. When their troubled paths inevitably cross, they form a sacred bond based on the mutual understanding of what it means to be othered, illuminating the interconnectedness of humanity and our innate relationship with the natural world.
An enthralling nautical epic, River Meets the Sea traces the dual timelines of a white-passing Indigenous foster child in 1940s Vancouver and a teenage immigrant in the suburbs of Nanaimo in the 1970s.
A natural-born storyteller, Ronny is a left-handed "alley mutt" without a birth certificate who searches for his mother everywhere - most powerfully, he hears her voice in the surging Sto:lo River. Born in the middle of the ocean on a merchant ship departing Sri Lanka, Chandra is a Tamil boy with "skin like a charred eggplant" who finds his haven from the pressure to assimilate by swimming and surfing in the Salish Sea.
Moving gracefully between these parallel stories like a wave, the novel traces the seemingly separate lives of these sensitive young men and their everlasting connections to water. When their troubled paths inevitably cross, they form a sacred bond based on the mutual understanding of what it means to be othered, illuminating the interconnectedness of humanity and our innate relationship with the natural world.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Concord
Canada
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 204 mm
Width: 136 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
423 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4870-1142-0 (9781487011420)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
RACHAEL MOORTHY is a writer of mixed heritage who is passionate about telling stories from the perspectives of melanated, diasporic, and displaced Indigenous people. She has a bachelor's of writing from the University of Victoria and is pursuing a master's at the University of Basel. She was shortlisted for the 2020 Far Horizons Award for Poetry, and her fiction has appeared in publications such as PRISM inter-national, SAD Magazine, and Revue Zinc. Born in Matsqui, British Columbia, Rachael lives in Switzerland.