Signals of Distress

By Jim Crace

November, 1836. A fierce gale beaches an American steamer off the English coast, injuring an African slave below decks and eventually disgorging 300 head of cattle and an inn-ful of rowdy American sailors into a hardscrabble fishing village. The same storm drives into port a ship from London, bearing one Aymer Smith, the foolish well-intentioned prig who will deprive the town of its livelihood, free the American slave, and set into motion a whole series of unforeseeable, tragicomic events. Chosen by Publishers Weekly as one of the best books of 1995, Signals of Distress, Jim Crace's fourth novel, once again displays the author's gift for inventing richly strange and believable worlds that uncannily foretell our own.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Sep 6, 2013
• ISBN: 9780385666923

Jim Crace

Jim Crace is the prize-winning author of a dozen books, including Continent (winner of the 1986 Whitbread First Novel Award and the Guardian Fiction Prize), Quarantine (1998 Whitbread Novel of the Year and shortlisted for the Booker Prize), Being Dead (winner of the 2001 National Book Critics Circle Award), Harvest (shortlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize and winner of the International Dublin Literary Award and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize) and The Melody. He lives in Worcestershire.

Reviews for Signals of Distress

[edwinbcn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Historical novels by contemporary writers are usually about famous historical figures or events. Not so Signals of distress by Jim Crace.Crace's novel uses a narrative technique often used in drama: a random group of characters is brought together by circumstance, and is forced to spend some time together, before each can go their own way. In drama this is a very forceful technique, which can bring about very interesting confrontations, while the audience is forced in a similar way to keep on listening. This same technique could work well in a novel, but in this novel it's deployment is only moderately successful.In Signals of distress a group of American sailors, carrying one African-American slave, is stranded in a small port city in Britain, awaiting the completion of repairs on their vessel which was damaged in a gale. They spend a few nights at an inn, together with a traveller, who intends to sail to the US.Unfortunately, all these characters are rather boring, and none of them are described in any amount of great detail. There is no apparent forceful dilemma, except for the difference in manners between sailors and a middle-class Englishman. The situation of the slave plays a very minor role. Without any further interesting events or developments, the novel remains a rather bland story. A bit as if the author tries his pen, but does not move beyond some simple dabbings.For its shortcomings in the plot, the novel's descriptions of the English countryside, and the historical couleur locale are impressive. The book is a pleasant read, with considerable, but moderately achieved potential.