Items related to The Flood
The book that began Ian Rankin's phenomenal career.
Mary Miller had always been an outcast. Burnt in a chemical mix as a young girl, sympathy for her quickly faded when the young man who pushed her in died in a mining accident just two days later. From then on she was regarded with a mixture of suspicion and fascination by her God-fearing community.
Now, years later, she is a single mother, caught up in a faltering affair with a local teacher. Her son, Sandy, has fallen in love with a strange homeless girl. The search for happiness isn't easy. Both mother and son must face a dark secret from their past, in the growing knowledge that their small dramas are being played out against a much larger canvas, glimpsed only in symbols and flickering images - of decay and regrowth, of fire and water - of the flood.
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Review:
Is it a comforting or precarious feeling, being the UK's number one best-selling male crime writer? Only Ian Rankin could answer that, but it's clear that the author is not content to rest on his laurels, and is always prepared to reinvigorate his excellent Inspector Rebus novels whenever a sense of déjà vu starts to creep in. And now we have Rankin's The Flood, a reissue of his first, unremarked novel. Was Rankin wise to sanction the re-release of this early book? After all, when we were given the chance to read again all the novels of Martin Cruz Smith had written before his groundbreaking Gorky Park, it was a sobering experience -- as the latter novel was a quantum leap in achievement beyond the previous books. Not so with The Flood: while this darkly disquieting novel caused ripples on its first publication, its reappearance after 20 years is something of a cause for celebration. Rankin began the novel as a 25-year-old student, and its publication by a small university publishing house (with a modest print run) escaped any critical attention. It took the atmospheric and gritty Rebus novels for us to see just how talented Rankin was, and it's a fascinating experience to re-encounter this tyro work.
Review:
The Flood is not a crime novel. Mary Miller is an alienated young woman. As a child, she had had an accident involving a flood of chemical discharges from the local coal mine -- she had survived, badly injured, but sympathy for her plight evaporated when the man who was responsible for the accident met his death in a mining accident shortly after. The pious community she lives in views her with superstitious dread. Time passes, and she gives birth to an illegitimate son, Sandy. Her unsatisfactory love affair with a teacher is going nowhere, and her son has started a relationship with a homeless girl. But both Sandy and his mother have to confront the past, and both find their lives will be changed by elemental forces -- notably the flood of the title.
As the above conveys, this is sombre stuff, but that won't put off Rankin aficionados, who look for the dark and disturbing in his work. While the book is (inevitably) not as fully achieved as his later work, there are many fascinating pre-echoes of the off-kilter psychology that is Rankin’s stock-in-trade, and any rough edges of the narrative are more than offset by the power of the already highly individual vision on offer here. --Barry Forshaw
A must for lovers of Rankin (GOOD BOOK GUIDE)
Full of secrets and revelations, with an atmospheric sense of time and place, it has Rankin's signature darkness (CHOICE)
It wouldn't take a Rebus to sleuth out the telltale signs of a talent in the making (Chris Power THE TIMES)
Full of secrets and revelations, with an atmospheric sense of time and place, it has Rankin's signature darkness (CHOICE)
It wouldn't take a Rebus to sleuth out the telltale signs of a talent in the making (Chris Power THE TIMES)
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherPolygon Bks.
- Publication date1986
- ISBN 10 094827512X
- ISBN 13 9780948275128
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages190
- Rating
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Book Description Soft cover. Condition: Near Very Good. 1st Edition. First published in this edition, stated. No indication of later printings, c 1986. Covers with minor shelf wear, edges a touch rubbed. Lower and fore edge of rear cover with light staining. Spine with a few reading creases. Binding sound, unaffected. Previous owner's name at top of front end paper, else unmarked and clean. Seller Inventory # 071870
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Book Description Softcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: No jacket. Small date written on the end page. Firmly bound. An unread copy of a fairly hard to find book. Professional seller. All pictures are of the actual book that is for sale. Books are dispatched in cardboard packaging. Seller Inventory # s10404
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Book Description Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. First Paperback Edition. A very good copy. Small, not too noticeable indentation in front cover (not piercing the cover). A clean copy without ownership inscription or other internal marking. 188 pages. The author's first novel. There were around 750 copies of this paperback edition which was published simulaneously with the hardback edition. Seller Inventory # 24338
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: Very Good. First Edition. A very good, clean copy of the author's first novel. No inscriptions and only ninor creasing to the spine. Size: 8vo. Seller Inventory # 67276
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Book Description Soft cover. Condition: Very Good Plus. First Edition. 1986. First impression of Rankin's first novel. 188pp. The book is in excellent condition with minor creasing down the spine. Colour illustration to front cover by Kerry Kirkwood. Previous owner's name to inside of front cover. Seller Inventory # ScotLitRankin25
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Book Description Soft cover. Condition: Near Fine. 1st Edition. 1st edition, 1st impression paperback original, published simultaneously with a small print run of the hardback. SIGNED by author on title page, with a doodle, and with no other inscriptions. Book in VG+ condition, spine with light reading crease and light wear to covers. Not a book club edition, ex library or a remainder. I am happy to supply scans. Signed by Author(s). Seller Inventory # ABE-1613852889963
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