Spill, Simmer, Falter, Wither by Sara Baume: book review

Spill, Simmer, Falter, Wither (2015) is set in 2011, on a beach in Ireland ‘hostile to holiday-makers, to day-trippers, to fair-weather strangers.’

Ray is 57 years old and has never held a woman’s hand. At an animal shelter, where creatures were once ‘mistreated, abandoned, abused,’ he teams up with a mischievous dog, whom he calls One Eye. Alone, they are both unloved and lonely. Together, they form a tight, loyal and devoted team.

All is wonderful as they learn to live together – until one dramatic event in their village changes everything. Ray and One Eye feel threatened and leave for an itinerant life on the road.

The narrator is Ray talking to One Eye about the daily activities they undertake. But in this narrative is the revelation of Ray’s life – why he is lonely, and why he is a misfit.

Apart from the fact that the author thinks 57 is old, which is at first annoying, this is quickly forgotten as the story unfolds.

The writing is exquisite, really exquisite. ‘I notice, on the index finger of my right hand, a skelp of skin gone from the knuckle, leaving a patch of pink, the vivid pink of chewed bubble gum.’ The writing is intensely personal, intensely revealing, and intensely sad.

This is not merely a man-and-his dog story. It is about loneliness, fear, and paranoia, born from abandonment. It is, at first glance, simplistic, yet it is heart-breakingly, tragically sad. A brilliant book.

MARTINA NICOLLSis an international aid and development consultant, and the authorof:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom(2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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