Aled is used to his dad Geraint waxing lyrical about some saint’s clifftop lookout; some Greek temple or another hosting a thousand sacred prostitutes; some village near Corinth. Geraint is the county archaeologist, after all. So when travel agent Aled takes a recce trip to that same Peloponnese village, his father is surprised. When Aled fails to return on the eve of his marriage, Geraint becomes alarmed and sets out on his trail.
This quest, which is also a pilgrimage, will change all those involved. Relationships – father and youthful son; son and elderly mother; fiances, lovers; colleagues – none are immutable. This novel shows those thresholds of choice, those liminal moments and places where a door may open onto another world, or at the very least, another way of relating to the one we have.
“And everywhere, at your feet, under your hands, this fabulous texture of the marble, these beautiful, creamy, flesh-like tones and surfaces, lit by glittering highlights, like sweat, like stars, like points of love, as though the marble sweated light. You sense the flesh of the stone, its weight and light, its enigmatic sexuality.”
“He thought about the world of the Greek myths, its diagrammatic simplicity: gods, mortals, this life, the afterlife; Olympus, the Underworld. These domains were separate, though sometimes interpenetrable, but journeys between them were always perilous, governed by ambiguous prohibitions, irreversible consequences. The door closed forever, the loved one was lost, or turned to stone, transformed into a tree, a bird, a stag, a breath of wind: Don’t look back, don’t look now.”
Cross the thresholds of time, space and perception with this magical mystery tour de force, combining elements of Celtic and Greek mythology. The journey of discovery becomes a quest for purpose and self-realisation, as well as a detective story for a missing person.
“Evocative… Chris Keil’s writing, which is limpid and often arrestingly vivid, has a charged quality that conveys the mysteries pulsing behind the everyday surfaces of things.”Nicolas Clee, The Guardian
“Luminous yet unpretentious prose that leaves images lingering in the mind… an enchanting novel that continues to reveal its secrets long after you have put it down.”
New Welsh Review
“Hypnotic.”Jan Morris
“Each character’s individual identity and voice emerges and evolves as subtly as the narrative shifts from Welsh clifftop
and museum backrooms to the harsh light of the Greek coast. Relationships, a sense of place, past and present, are subtly intertwined in this sensitive novel.”Wales Literature