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Fiction, Novel
Paperback book
The Seaglass Spiral is a saga of two families brought together by the accidents of history and love. Based with fidelity on Alan Gould‘s memories, on letters and diaries, and on information from the public record, these glimpses of the past are brought alive and indeed, given an authenticity only possible through the imaginative reinvention of fiction. Each part of this continuity of stories, each life in the greater pattern, seems to speak back and forth across time and remind us that we are in no real sense alone.
“With The Seaglass Spiral, Alan Gould confirms himself once more as among Australia’s finest and most original living authors (as a poet, as well as in prose). The neglect with which he has been treated may be benign, but it is unforgivable.” Peter Pierce The Age
“This is a book of patterns, but patterns without repetition. So it’s perfectly appropriate that it should be sui generis, a lightly fictionalised story of two families as they move towards personal and genetic entwining, neither a novel nor a memoir, not even that ghastly thing from the Creative Writing courses: creative non-fiction.” Philip Mead
“…if Sebright HAD drowned, he would have survived because he is so alive in these pages. So much honesty, humour, ruefulness, and recovered time brought to the fore seemingly without strain. Very, very good writing always getting on to the next phase interestingly, stacking the levels of the seaglass spiral.” Roger McDonald
“Gould takes his own and his wife’s family histories and uses his gifts as a poet and storyteller to make them intriguing… a slow, dense read but very beautiful.” Kerryn Goldsworthy, The Age and Sydney Morning Herald
“This is an absolutely beautiful book, in every way. The language is gorgeous, acute, observant; the feeling is tender, humorous, earthy and has an unusual elegance all its own. The book as object too is just gorgeous… published by a small press who really care about books.” Sophie Masson, Goodreads
“The Seaglass Spiral has, at once, the scholarly diligence of biography and the imaginative range associated with fiction. There is the sense of the narritive reflecting back and forth between life writing and the fictive, collecting the two in an innovative alignment of their particles.” Felicity Plunkett, The Australian
Alan Gould is a multi-award winning novelist, poet and essayist. The Seaglass Spiral is his eighth novel. Among his previous books, The Lake Woman was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Fiction Award 2010. The Past Completes Me: Selected Poems 1973-2003, won the Grace Leven Award, 2006. He lives in Canberra.
Fiction, Novel
Paperback book
The Seaglass Spiral is a saga of two families brought together by the accidents of history and love. Based with fidelity on Alan Gould‘s memories, on letters and diaries, and on information from the public record, these glimpses of the past are brought alive and indeed, given an authenticity only possible through the imaginative reinvention of fiction. Each part of this continuity of stories, each life in the greater pattern, seems to speak back and forth across time and remind us that we are in no real sense alone.
“With The Seaglass Spiral, Alan Gould confirms himself once more as among Australia’s finest and most original living authors (as a poet, as well as in prose). The neglect with which he has been treated may be benign, but it is unforgivable.” Peter Pierce The Age
“This is a book of patterns, but patterns without repetition. So it’s perfectly appropriate that it should be sui generis, a lightly fictionalised story of two families as they move towards personal and genetic entwining, neither a novel nor a memoir, not even that ghastly thing from the Creative Writing courses: creative non-fiction.” Philip Mead
“…if Sebright HAD drowned, he would have survived because he is so alive in these pages. So much honesty, humour, ruefulness, and recovered time brought to the fore seemingly without strain. Very, very good writing always getting on to the next phase interestingly, stacking the levels of the seaglass spiral.” Roger McDonald
“Gould takes his own and his wife’s family histories and uses his gifts as a poet and storyteller to make them intriguing… a slow, dense read but very beautiful.” Kerryn Goldsworthy, The Age and Sydney Morning Herald
“This is an absolutely beautiful book, in every way. The language is gorgeous, acute, observant; the feeling is tender, humorous, earthy and has an unusual elegance all its own. The book as object too is just gorgeous… published by a small press who really care about books.” Sophie Masson, Goodreads
“The Seaglass Spiral has, at once, the scholarly diligence of biography and the imaginative range associated with fiction. There is the sense of the narritive reflecting back and forth between life writing and the fictive, collecting the two in an innovative alignment of their particles.” Felicity Plunkett, The Australian
Alan Gould is a multi-award winning novelist, poet and essayist. The Seaglass Spiral is his eighth novel. Among his previous books, The Lake Woman was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Fiction Award 2010. The Past Completes Me: Selected Poems 1973-2003, won the Grace Leven Award, 2006. He lives in Canberra.