From the Bookshelf of Tyler Public Library…

[close] J’s quest for lasting romantic love has been fraught with disaster. “Such a sickness, wanting…Hunger whistles and whirls into your room at night, crouches on your chest, glues her nasty mouth to yours, and breathes her neediness into you. From then on you are full of want…Wanting is exactly what I’ve never wanted…If you retire from love, N once told me, then you retire from life…”

Nine Island begins as J has returned from a month long visit with Sir Gold, her first true love, having recently reconnected with her after a 3o year absence. Now, that visit has ended without the outcome J hoped for. Alison’s prose is mesmerizing and poetic as she unravels J’s quest for a meaningful and fulfilling relationship. “The sky this evening, as the sun set, as colors arced from shale far at sea, up to deep blue, then falling through sheer blue to pure glow to lime, coral, and rose, there was suddenly a radiance high in the clouds to the north: light struck clouds far higher than sunlit clouds can ever be.” Nine Island is set in a crumbling 80’s Miami high rise, which J dubs the Love Boat, and inhabited by a number of fading personalities who populate the apartment building and her life. A humorous study in the perversity of love and age, Alison’s slim novel is well worth dipping into. Highly recommended.