daniel davis wood at the edge of the solid world

But it’s all also much, much more than that, and if the narrator does come to terms with his own situation, he does it by a deep, imaginative and properly felt engagement with other grieving fathers, some of whom are historical - like Francis James Child and Abraham Lincoln, who we’ll hear about in a moment - while others are invented.Įach of these fathers is connected somehow, and often by direct personal experience, to a particular war or other violent historical event. Almost the first words he writes are “This is what I remember” it’s a written testament testimony of one father’s grief and of his experience of a marriage in crisis.

It seems to me that one way of approaching the book is as a determined act of witness on the part of the narrator. Certainly it’s the book that reaches furthest across different times and different places than any other I’ve recently read. So, Daniel… At the Edge of the Solid World is a properly epic and expansive novel. In fact, I’m not sure if Daniel’s seen physical copies yet - have you? The book is available for you all now in all good bookstores. And, if I do say so myself, I think we’ve got a beautiful cover and a very handsome typeset. So it’s an extraordinary privilege that Daniel has entrusted Brio with publishing this book we’re really proud to publish it. I’m not an outwardly very emotional person - I’m normally quite restrained, I’m very Anglo in that way - and I remember sitting at my desk sobbing, reading this manuscript, because from the first pages it was so powerful and so moving and I just knew that I wanted to have the opportunity to introduce it to readers. I’m Alice, I’m Associate Publisher at Brio, and it’s my extraordinary pleasure to celebrate this evening At the Edge of the Solid World, which has been a little while coming - I think it was maybe three years ago that I first read the manuscript. I’m just outside Canberra this evening, so I’d like to pay my respects to Ngunnawal people who’ve been storytellers here for tens of thousands of years. I know it’s not evening for everybody, but good evening from unceded Ngunnawal country.

Daniel davis wood at the edge of the solid world