Book Review

By Derryll White

Edwardson, Åke (2012). Sail of Stone.

Åke Edwardson’s opening paragraph is a brilliant piece of writing, beautiful but austere, that immediately pulls the reader into this work of deep Nordic noir.  He gives a lot of thought to thinking.

Inspector Eric Winter in particular purges linear thought, embracing the asymmetrical patterns jazz musicians employ in their creative ecstasy.  Music is everywhere in this novel, enriching and deepening both characters and settings.

Chief Inspector Eric Winter works in Gothenburg, Sweden, and enlists the help from Scots policeman Steve Macdonald to find the missing father of an old girlfriend of Winter’s.  It becomes clear that one should be wary of old girlfriends. Much of the intriguing movement occurs in Scotland, in the highlands and around Loch Ness.

Edwardson invokes a real feel in the reader for the small coastal fishing towns that the characters visit.  They are balanced against the harsh Atlantic Ocean they are perched on, and the fishermen who populate this novel give both the ocean and the villages a deeper meaning.

Edwardson runs a parallel story which takes place around Gothenburg, bringing into focus the functioning of the Swedish police system and the strengths of some of its members, in particular Detective Aneta Djanali. Edwardson strongly and often decries the misogynistic ways of men as Detective Djanali tries to sort out the abuse of a particular woman.

Landforms feature large in this work, an imposing counterpoint to the melodic line of the many musicians featured. The author is a master at blending rough ocean, heavy sky and massive landforms into a storyline that creates effective characters and takes the reader into rarely visited places in his or her own mind.

Some reviewers might brand this crime fiction but a more insightful sorting might offer ‘Sail of Stone’ as a psychological novel examining identity and family.  This one is worth reading

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Excerpts from the novel:

SOLITUDE – She liked the solitude.

    Sometimes she was afraid because she felt this way.

    You shouldn’t be alone.  That’s what others thought.  There’s something wrong when you’re alone.  No one chooses solitude.  Solitude is a punishment.  A sentence.

    No.  She wasn’t serving any sentence.  She liked sitting here and deciding to do whatever she wanted whenever she wanted.

FISHING – When he felt the wind in his face, the memories came.  It was always like that.  It could be light or dark.  The memories.  Out there, there was no day, no night.  The sea was its own world.  His work revolved around the trawling, the winches, the work deck, up and down, every five hours, seldom at night, at first, but he had wanted it to be otherwise.  It was still hell to try to sleep up in the forecastle along with seven others, everything sour, wet, always nights without sleep.  The work ached like a shadow in his body.  No warmth, no feeling of dry skin.  He would dream about it during the weeks out there.  The dry skin.

POLICE WORK – That’s how it was with his work.  That’s how he wanted it to be.  The past didn’t exist as a past; it was no more than an abstraction.  It was always there in reality, present in the same manner as the present, a parallel state that no one could sail away from

THE LIVING AND THE DEAD – Photographs.  Dead people.  He had seen enough of both for a lifetime.  She was absolutely right.  There were no similarities between the living and the dead.  Eyes that could see; eyes that couldn’t see.  A superficial likeness, yes, but no likeness.  Everything he had seen, a living face, a young girl, a young boy, a smile from a shelf in a home that was suddenly shattered by an incident that could never be described.  The silence that would be there forever.  A shallow silence.  Nothing to keep and to tend.  The same face, but without life.  I can’t stand it, he thought every time he stood there.  This is the last time.

JAZZ – Coltrane was blowing “Compassion” in the living room, along with another great tenor saxophonist, Pharoah Sanders.  It was music for wild thoughts, asymmetrical tones for his own head.  Coltrane’s instrument wandered like a lost spirit, on its way through black and white dreams, through sparse halls.  Elso had gotten used to falling asleep to extremely free-form jazz.  Winter wondered what that might lead to.

– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them.  When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.

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