Seahorse: A Novel

by Graham Petrie

High on a cliff overlooking this remote fishing village stands the institute. Some of the villagers fear that its head, Dr. Daniels, is interfering with the nightly journey of their souls to the deserted island a mile off shore. At first the narrator, a visitor staying at the hotel, scoffs. But as his stay endures, he too, is involved in experiences he cannot explain. Even the villagers' cardgame, Seahorse, a game whose rules he cannot master, seems to presage future events, and yet, how can it?
The reason for the narrator's presence in the village is itself a mystery as he struggles to make sense of the world from the clues available, an unwilling participant in the life of a primitive and sinister community.

Genres: Fiction

169 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1980

Reviews

[kat · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is really strange. It gets full marks for setting up a suspenseful, creepy atmosphere, full of inexplicable portents and surreal, mysterious events. But it's ultimately unsatisfying, leaving everything unresolved. It feels incomplete.

[Azra · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't have that much to say about this one, except it was surreal and dream like. I liked it!

[Andy Todd · Rating 5 out of 5]

A mystical journey through the psyche with deft use of language.

[Josh · Rating 2 out of 5]

Our nebulous narrator stumbles through a fever dream of... what? An anthropological study of a mysterious settlement? A really atypical place to kick back for a vacation, but what the hell, everywhere else is booked this year? Who knows. This would make a good short story but would be stretched taut even at novella-length. A quote from the midway point sums it up pretty well:

"...attractive and intriguing enough and occasionally even seeming on the point of suggesting an association or meaning of some kind that, with the constant realignment caused by the tremors and puffs of wind all around, was almost immediately distorted and lost."

I couldn't bother trying to find it. The atmosphere is dense and the dream-logic plot works well enough, but as a whole it wore out its welcome quickly and insisted on spending the afternoon.