E-books/audiobooks: Fiction

by Patrick Ness

Canongate

(e-book)

Before Patrick Ness conquered the world as a "young adult" author with his game-changing Chaos Walking trilogy and beautiful A Monster Calls, he wrote strange, scurrilous fiction for adults. The Crane Wife, then, isn't so much a departure as a return, comprising a story about grown-ups seemingly for them as well. Our hero George Duncan's unobtrusive life is interrupted when a crane falls into his garden, wounded by an arrow; this acts as the catalyst for Ness' plot that shuttles elegantly between the visionary and the naturalistic. George takes care of the crane until it can fly away. The next day a woman, Kumiko, appears. George falls in love, romantically and creatively. The pair collaborate on cutting paper shapes that not only make them famous, but which resound in the structure of this narrative. It unfolds elegantly through doubles, echoes and repeated motifs. Inspired by a Japanese fairytale (and possibly an album by The Decemberists), The Crane Wife is about love, redemption and creation.