Sounding the Blood

by Amanda Hale

This debut novel, set in a 1915 whaling station in the Queen Charlotte Islands, invokes the spirits of five dreamers held hostage to time, place, and memory: Leo Slaney, whose fumbled overtures to repair his marriage mask guilt and repressed desire; Nora, Leo's distraught wife destroyed by loss; Isobel, their rebellious daughter awakened to the forbidden love of a Japanese suitor; Lee Sun, an innocent seduced by opium in Victoria's Chinatown; and Kazuo Yamamoto, a wronged outsider yearning for his wife in Japan. "Hale expertly unwinds the story through the voices of each character." -- Quill & Quire

Genres: Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction

326 pages, Paperback

First published June 24, 2002

Reviews

[Magdelanye · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like waves advancing and retreating to reveal other aspects of the same scene,in Sounding the Blood Amanda Hale uncovers the story woven from the different voices of the participants. Some of the voices are brash, insistant,and some have become resigned, living in memory, ghosts in their own lives.

All five are displaced persons,like all the others who land in this remote Queen Charlotte whaling station; and like the Haida who were displaced by their coming. The best parts of the book for me delved in to the local native legends and history. I did not enjoy the details of the work that was carried out at the slaughterhouse. Hale's writing,highly naunced and poetic, is not sentimental and indeed, rather detached, despite her preoccupation with viscera. She does not come out and say, whaling is an abomination, but from our very first glimpse of the station "like a scar on the wildnerness of this country" and the vivid awareness of wildlife and nature that permeates this book,we understand her position


AH succceeds with in putting into context a shameful industry. She does this without villanizing the participants. She deals as well with the racism practiced in those days in an offhand way. She does a brilliant job of getting inside of her very diverse characters stream of consciousness. Unfortunately, all of the characters are struggling to retain what passes for sanity in order to carry on, and so self-obbssessed that being inside their heads was not especially nice.
It was a painful read.

Hence, despite exquisite writing, only 3 stars

[Sheila Tucker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in the west of Canada, this story is about the brevity of human life. It follows several characters during their struggles, yearnings, regrets and hopes. There are several extremely memorable scenes, and the literary talent of this author, Amanda Hale, made the book a delight to read.

[Karen Berry]

read it on the boat trip to alaska . Very interesting history of the whaling that went on in Haida Guaii.... good story.