Product Description

It is December 22nd, his son Euan's sixth birthday, and as he drives out to the coast on a day of thick snow, Paul begins to tell Euan a story.

He recalls the boy's birth, his first words and steps; there's the history of his relationship with Ruth, Euan's mother; there's the death of his own mother when he himself was a boy, and his father's refusal ever to explain what had occurred. It soons becomes evident, however, that Euan is not in the car. Evident, too, that Paul is living alone, and that in the cliffs and dunes of his destination lies the key to his story's conclusion.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1106430 in Books
• Published on: 2001-05-17
• Binding: Paperback
• 231 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
The eponymous crustaceans of Andrew Cowan's third novel are not only the hard-shelled sea creatures of sandy English shorelines, but the hard-lipped, reticent characters who believe that saying nothing is preferable to stirring up any kind of emotion. It begins with a stark cold melancholy--"December and one foot of snow." Paul, once married and a father, drives to the seaside in winter, sleeps "thinly" and talks constantly to his son, Euan. Except Euan is no longer there. On route, Paul remembers his own boyhood, his taciturn, self-absorbed father, whose "eyes flared out at me, his sculptor's eyes, as if I too were a piece of metal he could twist into shape". Paul's mothering was haphazard and inadequate, making him an over-concerned parent, obsessively detailing all aspects of Euan's life with the zeal that accompanies the firstborn: "I was always too keen to instruct you, and too conscious by far of the life you'd grow out of ... I treated you like history." Becoming his curator, the father collects hagstones, cowries and tellins for the son, and learns to emerge from his shell and love for the first time: "I'd never been happier, more at home in myself ... I was what you'd made me..." Paul tries to become everything his father failed to be but is haunted by his mother's mysterious illness and death, which the family refuses to explain. The absence of mother and son are delicately balanced with the reader experiencing some of Paul's frustration and bewilderment as the author withholds the reasons for Euan's absence until the novel's close. The intimate second person address makes Euan pressingly alive, "For you there was only ever what next", although Paul's relationship with his wife Ruth is less well drawn, making the character's isolation even more complete. Crustacean's understated power lies in its ability to show how rigorous self-preservation can inhibit one's capacity for love. --Cherry Smyth

Sunday Times
A haunting and heartbreaking meditation on the permeating power and permanence of loss... beautifully compact writing

Literary Review
A bleakly beautiful novel... riveting... Cowan conveys the experience of loss with an extraordinary, aching precision

Customer Reviews

A unique and beautiful novel
This follow-up to Cowan's much talked about first novel, Pig, will not disappoint. It follows the same quietly disturbing style, which won't knock you off your seat but will linger in your mind a long time after your'e done reading. The basic story is of a man, Paul, recalling the life of his son Euan to him, which has, as it becomes all too apparant, tragically been cut short at the age of five. But what unfolds is also the story of his own life, his childhood, his relationship with the child's mother. Unlike many i have read recently this novel contains characters which are so real you care about them.It actually has the power to evoke emotions not only in the drama of the big events, but in the small everyday things which would normally be taken for granted.

emotive subject, poorly handled
having recently lost my son i approached this book with a mixture of caution and hope thinking that it might be able to provide me with some comfort. unfortunately the book is too cold and clinical and doesnt get anywhere near to the heart of the pain and grief that comes with losing a child. thebook crawls along at a snails paces and is quite boring despite the subject matter. all in all i was left extremely disappointed

Near Perfect Work
It is becomingly increasingly rare that one comes across a writer who is able to handle a difficult subject matter with a touch that is so adept, so understated, and yet so powerful in its ultimate execution, that when you do come across an author who is clearly an unheralded talent, you want to shout it from the rooftops.

This book is extremely powerful, and incredibly moving, and yet it is a tale of such simplicity and sparseness that you read it voraciously. In brief, it is a man's gentle lament for the death of his young son, the death of his marriage, and the death of his youthful ideals. But what makes the whole thing emotionally bearable is the assuredness with which Cowan weaves his tale. I've not read anything as good from a newish writer since Ronan Bennett's 'The Catastrophist', a book which is very similar stylistically, most particularly in the ability of the the writers to sustain an even and emotionally charged tone, without ever resorting to sentimentalism and cheap effect.

Most definitely the best book I have read this year, if not the best I've read since 1999, when The Catastrophist came out. Well recommended.