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Fishboy: A Ghost's Story
In the brilliant idiom of a modern Melville or Conrad, an odyssey of discovery by a bold and outrageous talent--the PEN/Hemingway Award--winning author of The Ice At The Bottom Of The World .
244 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1993
11 people are currently reading
759 people want to read
About the author
Mark Richard
52 books86 followersMark Richard is an American short story writer, novelist, screenwriter, and poet. He is the author of two award-winning short story collections, The Ice at the Bottom of the World and Charity, a bestselling novel, Fishboy, and House of Prayer No. 2: A Writer's Journey Home.
Mark Richard was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and grew up in Texas and Virginia. As heard on the Diane Rehm Show on NPR: He grew up in the 1960s in a racially divided rural town in Virginia. His family was poor. He was born with deformed hips and spent years in and out of charity hospitals. When his father walked out, his mother withdrew further into a world of faith. In a new memoir "House of Prayer No. 2" he details growing up in the American South as a “The Special Child” and how the racial tensions and religious fervor of his home town animate his writing today.[1]
He attended college at Washington and Lee University. His first book, the short story collection The Ice at the Bottom of the World, won the 1990 PEN/Ernest Hemingway Foundation Award. His short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Esquire, GQ, The Paris Review, The Oxford American, Grand Street, Shenandoah, The Quarterly, Equator, and Antaeus.
He is the recipient of the PEN/Ernest Hemingway Award, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a Whiting Award, a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship, the Mary Francis Hobson Medal for Arts and Letters, and a National Magazine Award for Fiction. He has been writer-in-residence at the University of California Irvine, University of Mississippi, Arizona State University, the University of the South, Sewanee, and The Writer’s Voice in New York. His journalism has appeared in The New York Times, Harper’s, Spin, Esquire, George, Detour, Vogue, The Oxford American, and The Southern Review, and he has been a correspondent for the BBC. He was also screenwriter for the film Stop-Loss.
He lives in Los Angeles with his wife Jennifer Allen and their three sons.
Mark Richard was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and grew up in Texas and Virginia. As heard on the Diane Rehm Show on NPR: He grew up in the 1960s in a racially divided rural town in Virginia. His family was poor. He was born with deformed hips and spent years in and out of charity hospitals. When his father walked out, his mother withdrew further into a world of faith. In a new memoir "House of Prayer No. 2" he details growing up in the American South as a “The Special Child” and how the racial tensions and religious fervor of his home town animate his writing today.[1]
He attended college at Washington and Lee University. His first book, the short story collection The Ice at the Bottom of the World, won the 1990 PEN/Ernest Hemingway Foundation Award. His short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Esquire, GQ, The Paris Review, The Oxford American, Grand Street, Shenandoah, The Quarterly, Equator, and Antaeus.
He is the recipient of the PEN/Ernest Hemingway Award, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a Whiting Award, a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship, the Mary Francis Hobson Medal for Arts and Letters, and a National Magazine Award for Fiction. He has been writer-in-residence at the University of California Irvine, University of Mississippi, Arizona State University, the University of the South, Sewanee, and The Writer’s Voice in New York. His journalism has appeared in The New York Times, Harper’s, Spin, Esquire, George, Detour, Vogue, The Oxford American, and The Southern Review, and he has been a correspondent for the BBC. He was also screenwriter for the film Stop-Loss.
He lives in Los Angeles with his wife Jennifer Allen and their three sons.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 48 reviews
December 12, 2022
This might be the weirdest book I’ve ever read. It’s a straight up fever dream, and constantly had me questioning what was real and what was fantastical.
It’s about a feral boy that ends up working amongst a group of sailors, and we read through his very surrealist/dreamlike lens.
It’s dark, gritty, and very, very bizarre. I only recommend it if you’re in the mood for an unconventional narrative with some very strange imagery/prose!!
It’s about a feral boy that ends up working amongst a group of sailors, and we read through his very surrealist/dreamlike lens.
It’s dark, gritty, and very, very bizarre. I only recommend it if you’re in the mood for an unconventional narrative with some very strange imagery/prose!!
December 24, 2021
https://dentrodelmonolito.com/2021/12...
Una novela que ya me impactó por su presentación, por su aspecto y formato, por que parece traída desde una leyenda antigua y por lo que me evoca. Seducción inducida. Y no tarda en confirmar las expectativas, pues la primera página apabulla, te desmonta provocando una salivación de placer horrendo por todo lo que vendrá después.
Nos cuenta la historia de Niño Pez, un crío desvalido, abandonado, buscavidas, huérfano del mundo, a medio camino entre un ser humano y un profundo, o al menos esa es la perspectiva que se nos ofrece, con unas descripciones tremebundas de cada personaje que nos enfocan en una y otra dirección hasta que descubramos (o decidamos) nuestra propia verdad. Ese Niño Pez, pobre, humilde, trabajador, determinado, espera todas las mañanas la llegada del desvencijado autobús para faenar lo que las negras, sus ocupantes, le ordenen en una suerte de lonja, pues Niño Pez es propiedad de una de ellas. Pero Niño Pez sueña alto y lejos, sueña con marcharse, sueña con el barco, no cualquier barco, sino El Barco que lo lleve allende de ese espantoso lugar. Es entonces cuando aparece John, otro personaje inesperado (lo serán todos en su extravagancia e informidades), siniestro, cubierto de tatuajes mapa, que arrebata al Niño Pez lo poco que tiene en su reducto cuasi secreto, que le prohíbe ir con él, que parece el Capitán de un pecio de escasa tripulación; desalmados que se enfrentan a las negras por la lonja, por respeto, por las escasas propiedades o comida que albergan. Una guerra pequeña, pero guerra, al fin y al cabo, la cual acaba en sangriento desenlace. A partir de ahí, Niño Pez decide que embarcará con ellos, pese al miedo que le producen y a la negativa de John. Porque Niño Pez ya se veía muerto, se sentía como tal a cada paso que daba durante toda su existencia penosa, y esa condición le otorga un valor que ni él mismo conoce. Así polizona el barco, o quizá lo recojan con sus redes (las importantes redes, vitales), apadrinado bajo el auspicio del señor Watt (el desollado), protegiéndose de Lonny (enigmático y cruel), acompañado de los nuevos tripulantes que suponen el Idiota o los prisioneros encadenados, más veteranos como El Llorica de mierda, el supersticioso en lo negativo Ira Dench, y el maquinista Harold el Negro (junto al Lacayo de Fuego y al Macaco de las Calderas, y sí, los nombres importan, tienen su eco). Sumado a esta caterva, no puede Niño Pez sino correr aventuras dantescas o, quizá, y solo quizá, las aventuras vengan a él, de acción y de verbo.
Lo grandioso de esta historia, enrevesada, cuasi pirata dentro de la modernidad (y recordemos que los piratas no son los seres románticos de las películas, más bien se trata de criminales y asesinos sin escrúpulos que no dudan en traicionar incluso a los suyos y dejan huella a base de cadáveres, sin piedad conocida), es la manera de contarla, los constructos, bofetada tras bofetada narrativa al lector (y sí, supone mi debilidad, tras más de noventa rituales lo sabéis bien), sin una frase o párrafo de aburrimiento, pues algo restalla a la vista o a los sentidos: una expresión, una combinación, un significado novedoso, dos frases cruzadas, un aviso que es bomba de retardo y explotará páginas más adelante (aunque esa intensidad sufra de algunos altibajos, pues debe resultar imposible la sorpresa o el impacto continuo, sobre todo sufriendo en comparación al arranque de voraz literatura). Junto con algo vital que convierte la lectura en un todo: la sonoridad, el cómo reverbera el texto en la psique.
Y más, la amalgama de personajes extraños, retorcidos, mutantes, sacados de las profundidades de algún abismo nefasto, ya fuese la mar, una celda o el mismo infierno. Y no solo por sus deformidades o aspectos alejados de lo cotidiano (no entraremos en el juego de; lo normal es la mayoría), tan cercanos a Niño Pez, tan diferentes. Crueldades, falta de humanidad (aunque humanidad tienen para consigo mismos, y quizá eso los une en objetivos dispares). Weird. Navegando en una bruma sinfín pese a que busquen con ahínco, entre la climatología enemiga de tempestades y olas gigantes, los tiburones de todo tipo y esa red que parece una vela inversa, cargada, moviendo el barco, un barco sin nombre en lo que a nosotres respecta. Buscándola a ella.
El crisol de la novela de Niño Pez, en mi ignorante opinión y aparte de su trama principal (las relaciones entre estos personajes, el periplo del protagonista, su encuentros y desencuentros y supervivencias, hasta dónde llegarán y cómo, hasta cuándo se soportarán…), la suponen esas intrahistorias que los tripulantes se narran entre sí (y que tienen al Niño Pez como oyente ejemplar); historias de sus orígenes, anécdotas, crímenes, lo que los une, lo que los marcó para convertirse en lo que son y acabar aquí, en este pecio, con Niño Pez, el niño maldito. Auténticas fábulas, mitologías instantáneas disfrutables y raíz misma de la obra (aunque por ello, queda algo hueco ese argumento principal, sin que sea óbice para el disfrute). Porque quizá este sea el viaje a ninguna parte, y eso puede arrebatarle algo de condimento al desenlace, pero permite paladear la experiencia de todas esas parábolas.
Mark Richard sabe lo que escribe y también para quién lo escribe, porque esta obra (de talante experimental, aunque no sea precisamente novato el autor ni su estilo suponga algo nuevo en su repertorio) alejará a aquellos que no busquen retos o desafíos. Sin embargo, para el que guste de la exigencia, de la inmersión, de probar cosas nuevas, diferentes de la narración convencional (aunque el vocabulario no es elevado, sí lo supone la manera en que se utiliza), del gozo delirante de voces que nos provocan y nos despiertan sensaciones, por funestas que sean, tiene aquí otro pequeño tesoro. De gourmets. Acabarás siendo amigo de Niño Pez, por empatía, por lo que guarda dentro. Y recordarás su periplo. Confía en mí.
Pd: la vida pirata es la vida mejor, sin trabajar, sin estudiar, ooohhhh, ¡la botella de ron!
Pd II: Vas a aprender un rato largo sobre cocina…
Una novela que ya me impactó por su presentación, por su aspecto y formato, por que parece traída desde una leyenda antigua y por lo que me evoca. Seducción inducida. Y no tarda en confirmar las expectativas, pues la primera página apabulla, te desmonta provocando una salivación de placer horrendo por todo lo que vendrá después.
Nos cuenta la historia de Niño Pez, un crío desvalido, abandonado, buscavidas, huérfano del mundo, a medio camino entre un ser humano y un profundo, o al menos esa es la perspectiva que se nos ofrece, con unas descripciones tremebundas de cada personaje que nos enfocan en una y otra dirección hasta que descubramos (o decidamos) nuestra propia verdad. Ese Niño Pez, pobre, humilde, trabajador, determinado, espera todas las mañanas la llegada del desvencijado autobús para faenar lo que las negras, sus ocupantes, le ordenen en una suerte de lonja, pues Niño Pez es propiedad de una de ellas. Pero Niño Pez sueña alto y lejos, sueña con marcharse, sueña con el barco, no cualquier barco, sino El Barco que lo lleve allende de ese espantoso lugar. Es entonces cuando aparece John, otro personaje inesperado (lo serán todos en su extravagancia e informidades), siniestro, cubierto de tatuajes mapa, que arrebata al Niño Pez lo poco que tiene en su reducto cuasi secreto, que le prohíbe ir con él, que parece el Capitán de un pecio de escasa tripulación; desalmados que se enfrentan a las negras por la lonja, por respeto, por las escasas propiedades o comida que albergan. Una guerra pequeña, pero guerra, al fin y al cabo, la cual acaba en sangriento desenlace. A partir de ahí, Niño Pez decide que embarcará con ellos, pese al miedo que le producen y a la negativa de John. Porque Niño Pez ya se veía muerto, se sentía como tal a cada paso que daba durante toda su existencia penosa, y esa condición le otorga un valor que ni él mismo conoce. Así polizona el barco, o quizá lo recojan con sus redes (las importantes redes, vitales), apadrinado bajo el auspicio del señor Watt (el desollado), protegiéndose de Lonny (enigmático y cruel), acompañado de los nuevos tripulantes que suponen el Idiota o los prisioneros encadenados, más veteranos como El Llorica de mierda, el supersticioso en lo negativo Ira Dench, y el maquinista Harold el Negro (junto al Lacayo de Fuego y al Macaco de las Calderas, y sí, los nombres importan, tienen su eco). Sumado a esta caterva, no puede Niño Pez sino correr aventuras dantescas o, quizá, y solo quizá, las aventuras vengan a él, de acción y de verbo.
Lo grandioso de esta historia, enrevesada, cuasi pirata dentro de la modernidad (y recordemos que los piratas no son los seres románticos de las películas, más bien se trata de criminales y asesinos sin escrúpulos que no dudan en traicionar incluso a los suyos y dejan huella a base de cadáveres, sin piedad conocida), es la manera de contarla, los constructos, bofetada tras bofetada narrativa al lector (y sí, supone mi debilidad, tras más de noventa rituales lo sabéis bien), sin una frase o párrafo de aburrimiento, pues algo restalla a la vista o a los sentidos: una expresión, una combinación, un significado novedoso, dos frases cruzadas, un aviso que es bomba de retardo y explotará páginas más adelante (aunque esa intensidad sufra de algunos altibajos, pues debe resultar imposible la sorpresa o el impacto continuo, sobre todo sufriendo en comparación al arranque de voraz literatura). Junto con algo vital que convierte la lectura en un todo: la sonoridad, el cómo reverbera el texto en la psique.
Y más, la amalgama de personajes extraños, retorcidos, mutantes, sacados de las profundidades de algún abismo nefasto, ya fuese la mar, una celda o el mismo infierno. Y no solo por sus deformidades o aspectos alejados de lo cotidiano (no entraremos en el juego de; lo normal es la mayoría), tan cercanos a Niño Pez, tan diferentes. Crueldades, falta de humanidad (aunque humanidad tienen para consigo mismos, y quizá eso los une en objetivos dispares). Weird. Navegando en una bruma sinfín pese a que busquen con ahínco, entre la climatología enemiga de tempestades y olas gigantes, los tiburones de todo tipo y esa red que parece una vela inversa, cargada, moviendo el barco, un barco sin nombre en lo que a nosotres respecta. Buscándola a ella.
El crisol de la novela de Niño Pez, en mi ignorante opinión y aparte de su trama principal (las relaciones entre estos personajes, el periplo del protagonista, su encuentros y desencuentros y supervivencias, hasta dónde llegarán y cómo, hasta cuándo se soportarán…), la suponen esas intrahistorias que los tripulantes se narran entre sí (y que tienen al Niño Pez como oyente ejemplar); historias de sus orígenes, anécdotas, crímenes, lo que los une, lo que los marcó para convertirse en lo que son y acabar aquí, en este pecio, con Niño Pez, el niño maldito. Auténticas fábulas, mitologías instantáneas disfrutables y raíz misma de la obra (aunque por ello, queda algo hueco ese argumento principal, sin que sea óbice para el disfrute). Porque quizá este sea el viaje a ninguna parte, y eso puede arrebatarle algo de condimento al desenlace, pero permite paladear la experiencia de todas esas parábolas.
Mark Richard sabe lo que escribe y también para quién lo escribe, porque esta obra (de talante experimental, aunque no sea precisamente novato el autor ni su estilo suponga algo nuevo en su repertorio) alejará a aquellos que no busquen retos o desafíos. Sin embargo, para el que guste de la exigencia, de la inmersión, de probar cosas nuevas, diferentes de la narración convencional (aunque el vocabulario no es elevado, sí lo supone la manera en que se utiliza), del gozo delirante de voces que nos provocan y nos despiertan sensaciones, por funestas que sean, tiene aquí otro pequeño tesoro. De gourmets. Acabarás siendo amigo de Niño Pez, por empatía, por lo que guarda dentro. Y recordarás su periplo. Confía en mí.
Pd: la vida pirata es la vida mejor, sin trabajar, sin estudiar, ooohhhh, ¡la botella de ron!
Pd II: Vas a aprender un rato largo sobre cocina…
October 3, 2013
Wow. What a great ending, one you wouldn't think could be pulled off in first-person narration. Surely this trick has been done before, but I've never seen it.
Anyway, this is a pleasingly strange tale of an abandoned boy who lives in a swamp and joins the misfit crew of an enigmatic fishing boat. At first it is only the language of the narration that is grotesque and phantasmal, but eventually the events themselves become so. This is not a fantasy novel, but nor do I readily want to call it 'magical realism'. It's its own thing, I guess (as most works labelled 'magical realism' are anyway). The book keeps you off balance in a good way.
The freakish cast and almost comedic gore puts me in mind of one of Cormac McCarthy's Tennessee novels, such as Child of God. The 'Southern Gothic' prose style (another lazy and potentially misleading label) is perhaps somewhere between McCarthy and Toni Morrison, but not as truly great as either. It has its enthralling passages, but sometimes the ghostly quality can leave the reader a little too abstracted.
A blurb from the back cover notes that Richard 'has folded a host of exquisitely rendered tales into a stunning novel'. As Fishboy's own narrative travels sequentially, the back-stories of the many other characters are 'folded' into it and most of them are weird and disturbing, both gross and engrossing. My favourites were the two poignantly tragic childhood reminiscences of Mr. Watt, the inside-out man (one of the craziest 'deformities' I've ever heard dreamt up, sickening but fascinating).
There are any number of wonders and horrors rendered well right to the very end. The story may drag just a little at times (just as in the novel the fishing boat's giant net drags out behind it, occasionally catching an object that threatens to pull it backward). But it has a very rewarding conclusion.
This is a great first novel (published 1993) and I wish the author would write more novels to bring his craft to its full flowering. Regardless, I'm looking forward to reading his two collections of short fiction and his memoir House of Prayer No. 2 (2011).
As an envoy to this little review, here's a passage from early in the novel:
'Across the creek the rising water shifted a run-aground wreck and bats by the thousands spun up through the smokestacks like the black fur of exhaust blown from boilers stoked by ghosts. The smudge of bats was split here and there by gulls and terns making whitecaps of flight to drier roosts, and from beyond the long dunes blew in a wet mist that my firelight lit like tiers of talcum sunsets.'
Anyway, this is a pleasingly strange tale of an abandoned boy who lives in a swamp and joins the misfit crew of an enigmatic fishing boat. At first it is only the language of the narration that is grotesque and phantasmal, but eventually the events themselves become so. This is not a fantasy novel, but nor do I readily want to call it 'magical realism'. It's its own thing, I guess (as most works labelled 'magical realism' are anyway). The book keeps you off balance in a good way.
The freakish cast and almost comedic gore puts me in mind of one of Cormac McCarthy's Tennessee novels, such as Child of God. The 'Southern Gothic' prose style (another lazy and potentially misleading label) is perhaps somewhere between McCarthy and Toni Morrison, but not as truly great as either. It has its enthralling passages, but sometimes the ghostly quality can leave the reader a little too abstracted.
A blurb from the back cover notes that Richard 'has folded a host of exquisitely rendered tales into a stunning novel'. As Fishboy's own narrative travels sequentially, the back-stories of the many other characters are 'folded' into it and most of them are weird and disturbing, both gross and engrossing. My favourites were the two poignantly tragic childhood reminiscences of Mr. Watt, the inside-out man (one of the craziest 'deformities' I've ever heard dreamt up, sickening but fascinating).
There are any number of wonders and horrors rendered well right to the very end. The story may drag just a little at times (just as in the novel the fishing boat's giant net drags out behind it, occasionally catching an object that threatens to pull it backward). But it has a very rewarding conclusion.
This is a great first novel (published 1993) and I wish the author would write more novels to bring his craft to its full flowering. Regardless, I'm looking forward to reading his two collections of short fiction and his memoir House of Prayer No. 2 (2011).
As an envoy to this little review, here's a passage from early in the novel:
'Across the creek the rising water shifted a run-aground wreck and bats by the thousands spun up through the smokestacks like the black fur of exhaust blown from boilers stoked by ghosts. The smudge of bats was split here and there by gulls and terns making whitecaps of flight to drier roosts, and from beyond the long dunes blew in a wet mist that my firelight lit like tiers of talcum sunsets.'
February 23, 2022
An incredibly fun and bizarro book that reads like a modernized take on a classic adventure tale in the Melville tradition, with a strong influence of magical realism and a livelier, more accessible sensibility, albeit one that doesn't sacrifice Richard's undeniable poetic register and incredibly percussive delivery. The prose is lyrical and rollicking and brimming with alliteration and rhythm (including rhyme schemes), a lot of it best read aloud for maximum effect, and the events are always some mix of horrifying, absurd, hilarious, surreal, or just downright disgusting, making this thing incredibly entertaining and breezy to read even when it's assaulting you with some incredible grotesqueries. So kind of imagine an epic prose poem got filtered through a diet of David Lynch and Cormac McCarthy (and maybe add a dash of folk horror), and the resulting nightmare child of their combined subconscious is "Fishboy". Light on plot and heavy on atmosphere, character and sensory detail - this is definitely the kind of book you soak into and have to enjoy completely on the terms of its lunatic, unique wavelength.
"Fishboy" is a formal accomplishment even beyond the sheer page-by-page quality of its prose. There's an abundant and colorful canvas of mood and tone on display in this novel, ranging from well-timed absurdist humor suffused with the grotesque (see an axe fight ending with a man split in two yet still being able to deliver a death monologue, or two characters telling a long-winded story in a story while desperately clinging to the side of a ship) to opaque inner monologues and dense, twisting streams of consciousness, with some sentences going on for pages and pages. As I read, I wondered if this was a representation of Fishboy, a child, being involved in situations as absurd and dangerous as the one aboard the ship he embarks on a voyage with after escaping from his home island - children process the world in magnified, magnificent ways, so perhaps all the stranger stuff is how Fishboy perceives his experiences filtered through his child memories? The structure is odd and charming, and combining these momentum-driving narrative devices with Richard's languid and cerebral prose and wacky sea shanty shenanigans is a recipe for a win in my book.
I loved the way Richard illustrated the world in this novel and his bizarro cast of characters' lives on the sea. This is clearly a fantastical world in many respects (possibly even if my previous musing about the perspective of Fishboy is true), but it has enough in common with a baroque 17th century piracy aesthetic that it moreso feels like our world shrouded in a hazy twilight, lost in time. Half-fish half-human protagonist notwithstanding, there's also mermaids, the vengeful (and limbless) undead, ghosts summoned by channeling rituals, guys with superhuman strength who wrestle squamous maritime beasts, and plenty of things appearing in the sea that should not have any place within it. Place names are often unspecified, and greater details surrounding this world are left out or marginal at best, and I really enjoyed this sense of indirect worldbuilding; splurging on worldbuilding has its benefits and good uses, but an approach like the one found in "Fishboy" is quite more evocative in this instance and also a refreshing change of pace.
Not really too much to say about this one; fun characters, beautiful and musical prose, an entertaining ying-and-yang between comedy and nightmare. It's not super deep or anything, and it's over pretty quickly given the momentum of its plot and style, ultimately making it just a really really fun novel. For fans of: writers of the Melville/Faulkner/Conrad DNA, pirate enthusiasts, Robert Eggers' "The Lighthouse", fans of surrealism and Dadaism and people who like being spun up in a drunken yarn with someone after having three glasses of whiskey. Very lovable overlooked gem!
"I mist inside your house. I linger in your curtains. I wait until you are asleep so that I can speak to you in your dreams. I am as close to you as the veins in your neck when I Say to you, in my whispering lisp, I, too, began as a boy."
"Fishboy" is a formal accomplishment even beyond the sheer page-by-page quality of its prose. There's an abundant and colorful canvas of mood and tone on display in this novel, ranging from well-timed absurdist humor suffused with the grotesque (see an axe fight ending with a man split in two yet still being able to deliver a death monologue, or two characters telling a long-winded story in a story while desperately clinging to the side of a ship) to opaque inner monologues and dense, twisting streams of consciousness, with some sentences going on for pages and pages. As I read, I wondered if this was a representation of Fishboy, a child, being involved in situations as absurd and dangerous as the one aboard the ship he embarks on a voyage with after escaping from his home island - children process the world in magnified, magnificent ways, so perhaps all the stranger stuff is how Fishboy perceives his experiences filtered through his child memories? The structure is odd and charming, and combining these momentum-driving narrative devices with Richard's languid and cerebral prose and wacky sea shanty shenanigans is a recipe for a win in my book.
I loved the way Richard illustrated the world in this novel and his bizarro cast of characters' lives on the sea. This is clearly a fantastical world in many respects (possibly even if my previous musing about the perspective of Fishboy is true), but it has enough in common with a baroque 17th century piracy aesthetic that it moreso feels like our world shrouded in a hazy twilight, lost in time. Half-fish half-human protagonist notwithstanding, there's also mermaids, the vengeful (and limbless) undead, ghosts summoned by channeling rituals, guys with superhuman strength who wrestle squamous maritime beasts, and plenty of things appearing in the sea that should not have any place within it. Place names are often unspecified, and greater details surrounding this world are left out or marginal at best, and I really enjoyed this sense of indirect worldbuilding; splurging on worldbuilding has its benefits and good uses, but an approach like the one found in "Fishboy" is quite more evocative in this instance and also a refreshing change of pace.
Not really too much to say about this one; fun characters, beautiful and musical prose, an entertaining ying-and-yang between comedy and nightmare. It's not super deep or anything, and it's over pretty quickly given the momentum of its plot and style, ultimately making it just a really really fun novel. For fans of: writers of the Melville/Faulkner/Conrad DNA, pirate enthusiasts, Robert Eggers' "The Lighthouse", fans of surrealism and Dadaism and people who like being spun up in a drunken yarn with someone after having three glasses of whiskey. Very lovable overlooked gem!
"I mist inside your house. I linger in your curtains. I wait until you are asleep so that I can speak to you in your dreams. I am as close to you as the veins in your neck when I Say to you, in my whispering lisp, I, too, began as a boy."
November 8, 2022
I have never wanted a book to be adapted into a film more in my entire my life. The visuals would be haunting, grotesque, terrifying. It would be one of the weirdest, creepiest movies ever made (as it is definitely one of the weirdest, creepiest books I’ve ever read). I feel like a movie of this book would bring this story to new heights. It would be a vomit-inducing riot!
I wish that I could give this novel (a remarkably inventive debut!) a higher rating, because the premise is entirely original and indelible. I loved the ideas, the characters, the absolute creepy bizarreness of it all. But the writing holds me back from full-heartedly adoring it. I see the talent in the writing style, but I personally found it to hold the genius of the story itself back. It felt too convoluted to me, causing me to have to often re-read passages. The author really could have used some clarity within his style, as it was often decently unclear. But, in a way, the style of the crowded prose fits the theme and heart of the story so well. It’s dark, but weirdly personable, with flecks of pure gold scattered about the wreckage. (Seriously, the recounts Mr. Watt and The Cook gave of their backstories were out-of-this-world creative. They were the highlights of the whole thing. Pure gold!)
I wish that I could give this novel (a remarkably inventive debut!) a higher rating, because the premise is entirely original and indelible. I loved the ideas, the characters, the absolute creepy bizarreness of it all. But the writing holds me back from full-heartedly adoring it. I see the talent in the writing style, but I personally found it to hold the genius of the story itself back. It felt too convoluted to me, causing me to have to often re-read passages. The author really could have used some clarity within his style, as it was often decently unclear. But, in a way, the style of the crowded prose fits the theme and heart of the story so well. It’s dark, but weirdly personable, with flecks of pure gold scattered about the wreckage. (Seriously, the recounts Mr. Watt and The Cook gave of their backstories were out-of-this-world creative. They were the highlights of the whole thing. Pure gold!)
March 30, 2008
The story of a poor orphan boy who runs away to sea, has a series of adventures among a crew of misfits, and returns home somewhat the worse for wear. The sort of novel Melville and Faulkner would have written had they been collaborating and had a supply of hallucinogens handy. The tale Fishboy tells is dark and gruesome, yet also funny and moving, told in a lyrical style full of rich language and set in a surreal yet familiar world of ghosts, mermaids, and strange civilizations. Not recommended for anyone who prefers happy endings.
November 6, 2011
I love this book. I guess you would put in a contemporary magic realism category. Overall it's a little sad but also contains hope. Occasionally the prose is a little too ornate but generally it's pretty wild and beautiful.
June 18, 2014
A fine first novel, enjoyed it very much. Fantasy sea tale with grotesques and criminals, blood and starvation, murder and pox.
October 7, 2022
What a world we would inhabit if a tenth of contemporary writers wrote with half the joy Richard brings to the page.
September 4, 2018
Great but read his short stories first.
February 15, 2025
Una novela surrealista en la que el protagonista es un niño de unos 8-10 años arrojado por sus padres (borrachos y muy pobres) a un pantano metido en un saco.
Consigue sobrevivir y sale adelante conviviendo con una camada de perros en invierno y en un nido con serpientes en verano.
Termina asentándose en puerto, durmiendo en una caja, desbullando moluscos y limpiando pescado podrido que vende por una miseria a un grupo de enormes negras que le llaman Niño pez.
Un día llega al puerto un barco pesquero. Sus tripulantes tienen una enorme pelea con la gente del puerto y todo acaba en llamas. En la pelea Niño pez clava un cuchillo de mantequilla a una de las mujeres negras y escapa subiéndose al barco pesquero.
Aquí la historia se bifurca en las historias de los tripulantes del barco, cada una más extraña y extravagante; Un idiota que solo sabe decir mierda, un capitán con alergia a la luz que se le quema la piel y los ojos con el sol, y ciego navega de memoria, recordando los mapas náuticos que otro de los marineros tiene tatuados en todo su cuerpo. Otro marinero con el cráneo blando, otro partió al al cocinero en dos con un hacha por hacer los huevos fritos demasiado grasientos...
El nuevo cocinero no había cocinado en su vida. Habia estado casado con una princesa negra de una tribu africana y había tenido 5 hijos con ella. Todos habían muerto en un corrimiento de tierra y ahora vivía obsesionado con que su hermano son brazos le perseguía para matarle.
Iban en busca de pescar un tiburon que según unos fantasmas que vivían en el fondo del mar le dijeron a otro marinero se comió a su amada novia. Y en esa búsqueda pescaron en las redes a un submarino con el que tuvieron una batalla victoriosa pero que acabó con el pesquero hundido. Niño pez se salvó del naufragio en un bote que a la deriva después de muchos días llego al puerto de donde salió. Allí la venganza de la negra a la que acuchillo con un cuchillo de mantequilla cayó sobre él de una manera tan loca como el resto del libro.
Consigue sobrevivir y sale adelante conviviendo con una camada de perros en invierno y en un nido con serpientes en verano.
Termina asentándose en puerto, durmiendo en una caja, desbullando moluscos y limpiando pescado podrido que vende por una miseria a un grupo de enormes negras que le llaman Niño pez.
Un día llega al puerto un barco pesquero. Sus tripulantes tienen una enorme pelea con la gente del puerto y todo acaba en llamas. En la pelea Niño pez clava un cuchillo de mantequilla a una de las mujeres negras y escapa subiéndose al barco pesquero.
Aquí la historia se bifurca en las historias de los tripulantes del barco, cada una más extraña y extravagante; Un idiota que solo sabe decir mierda, un capitán con alergia a la luz que se le quema la piel y los ojos con el sol, y ciego navega de memoria, recordando los mapas náuticos que otro de los marineros tiene tatuados en todo su cuerpo. Otro marinero con el cráneo blando, otro partió al al cocinero en dos con un hacha por hacer los huevos fritos demasiado grasientos...
El nuevo cocinero no había cocinado en su vida. Habia estado casado con una princesa negra de una tribu africana y había tenido 5 hijos con ella. Todos habían muerto en un corrimiento de tierra y ahora vivía obsesionado con que su hermano son brazos le perseguía para matarle.
Iban en busca de pescar un tiburon que según unos fantasmas que vivían en el fondo del mar le dijeron a otro marinero se comió a su amada novia. Y en esa búsqueda pescaron en las redes a un submarino con el que tuvieron una batalla victoriosa pero que acabó con el pesquero hundido. Niño pez se salvó del naufragio en un bote que a la deriva después de muchos días llego al puerto de donde salió. Allí la venganza de la negra a la que acuchillo con un cuchillo de mantequilla cayó sobre él de una manera tan loca como el resto del libro.
October 20, 2012
I read far too few novels, and my life suffers for it. The same can be said for poetry. In fact, I am one of the dwindling number of people who feels there is more to be done as long as there are unread books which rest upon the shelf. And there are always more bookshelves, somewhere. So I'm glad to say I finished a novel several days ago which still has me thinking about it, pondering its images and intent.
Fishboy, by Mark Richard, tells of a young orphan who spends the first years of his life in an island fishing town. The boy, known only as Fishboy to himself, his acquaintances (he doesn't seem to have any real friends), and us the readers, still has the fantastic, mythic eyes of an ostracized child through which filter everything he encounters. He lives and works in this fishing village, diving for shellfish and submerged sodas, until the day when a strange shipload of men--murderers, freaks, fishermen, and possibly pirates--dock at the town and burn it to the ground before leaving again. Rather than seeking shelter and comfort with the humiliated villagers, Fishboy decides to cast his lot with the dangerous men who have tied his meager belongings to a kite, set them afire, and let them float away into the night.
After this point, most of the book becomes a serial retelling of this band's stories, magical realism relayed to us by the slightly unreliable narration of the boy. It's a clever if easy ruse on Richard's part-- are the fantastic elements heightened or exaggerated because of the narrator's age and mentality? It's entirely possible, although the men in the crew seem quite superstitious and prone to exaggeration themselves. They are storytellers and seamen who seem to simultaneously believe in their stories and recognize them as problematic, larger than life fables. Because of such complicated layers of narrative, the usual function of magical realism-- a forced recognition that the world is not always as simple and straightforward as it seems, that there are many shades of experience which cannot be "rationally" explained--borders on being subverted here.
But the imaginative attractiveness of magic realism is kept intact. There are striking images throughout this series of tales which will haunt me for a long time: the crew member who returned home to find his wife sleeping with another man, kills them both, and then sews their bodies together with thousands of tiny stitches. The body of John, who is the crew's leader-- though not their captain-- is tattooed all over with maps of places he's traveled, with each place corresponding to a notable period of his life. The true captain of the ship, who is hidden away in the wheelhouse, is a fatherly man whose body, crowned by a flowing mane of silver hair which has been that color since birth, is turned inside out so his vulnerable muscles and tissues must always be protected from exposure to the outside world. Watt, the captain, is fatherly and wise, and his most notable line in the book is eventually adopted by Fishboy himself: "I, too, began as a boy."
I've seen a comment on this book which identifies it as a coming of age novel, and notes that learning to tell stories is a crucial part of that process here. Indeed, at one point early on, Fishboy states that he barely knows his own story, and doesn't have much to say about himself. But the stories which he repeats throughout the rest of the novel are so rich that I can't refrain from some analysis which very much lines this piece up in the ars poetica/metafiction realms. As I read it, the fishboy is of course playing the allegorical role of the storyteller, and the tales that are given to him may or may not be his own, but they are heightened by his telling of them. Fishboy is caught between the worlds of the imagination and the devastatingly ordinary, and chooses to set sail with the fantastic interlopers who tear apart his somewhat commonplace world. And also suitably, it is the utterly modern machine--a nuclear submarine-- which destroys the cobbled phantasm of a ship which the Fishboy tries to make his home.
But even with all these strengths of the novel (and the language, oh the language, in which it is told--"I began as a boy, as a human-being boy, a boy who fled to sea, a boy with a whistling lisp and the silken-tipped fingers of another class" is the opening sentence, and the ear is seduced along from there), I'm sometimes left wondering what to do with all of these vibrantly drawn characters: should I read them as archetypes of outcasts, the metaphorically marginalized? Are they simply interesting diversions? Their heightened realizations make me want to do something with them other than let them be foils or guides to Fishboy himself, to read them metaphorically. And somehow they do read as manifestations of possibility for the boy, but if this is so, then the boy's future is bleak indeed.
In any case, this blog entry has now become nearly as long as the book itself-- I do tend to get swept away by ideas when I come across them in an inventive, image-driven presentation, and can sometimes write about them longer than I should. I just wish I weren't such a slow reader, so I could always be caught up in tempests of the imagination and intellect such as this one.
Fishboy, by Mark Richard, tells of a young orphan who spends the first years of his life in an island fishing town. The boy, known only as Fishboy to himself, his acquaintances (he doesn't seem to have any real friends), and us the readers, still has the fantastic, mythic eyes of an ostracized child through which filter everything he encounters. He lives and works in this fishing village, diving for shellfish and submerged sodas, until the day when a strange shipload of men--murderers, freaks, fishermen, and possibly pirates--dock at the town and burn it to the ground before leaving again. Rather than seeking shelter and comfort with the humiliated villagers, Fishboy decides to cast his lot with the dangerous men who have tied his meager belongings to a kite, set them afire, and let them float away into the night.
After this point, most of the book becomes a serial retelling of this band's stories, magical realism relayed to us by the slightly unreliable narration of the boy. It's a clever if easy ruse on Richard's part-- are the fantastic elements heightened or exaggerated because of the narrator's age and mentality? It's entirely possible, although the men in the crew seem quite superstitious and prone to exaggeration themselves. They are storytellers and seamen who seem to simultaneously believe in their stories and recognize them as problematic, larger than life fables. Because of such complicated layers of narrative, the usual function of magical realism-- a forced recognition that the world is not always as simple and straightforward as it seems, that there are many shades of experience which cannot be "rationally" explained--borders on being subverted here.
But the imaginative attractiveness of magic realism is kept intact. There are striking images throughout this series of tales which will haunt me for a long time: the crew member who returned home to find his wife sleeping with another man, kills them both, and then sews their bodies together with thousands of tiny stitches. The body of John, who is the crew's leader-- though not their captain-- is tattooed all over with maps of places he's traveled, with each place corresponding to a notable period of his life. The true captain of the ship, who is hidden away in the wheelhouse, is a fatherly man whose body, crowned by a flowing mane of silver hair which has been that color since birth, is turned inside out so his vulnerable muscles and tissues must always be protected from exposure to the outside world. Watt, the captain, is fatherly and wise, and his most notable line in the book is eventually adopted by Fishboy himself: "I, too, began as a boy."
I've seen a comment on this book which identifies it as a coming of age novel, and notes that learning to tell stories is a crucial part of that process here. Indeed, at one point early on, Fishboy states that he barely knows his own story, and doesn't have much to say about himself. But the stories which he repeats throughout the rest of the novel are so rich that I can't refrain from some analysis which very much lines this piece up in the ars poetica/metafiction realms. As I read it, the fishboy is of course playing the allegorical role of the storyteller, and the tales that are given to him may or may not be his own, but they are heightened by his telling of them. Fishboy is caught between the worlds of the imagination and the devastatingly ordinary, and chooses to set sail with the fantastic interlopers who tear apart his somewhat commonplace world. And also suitably, it is the utterly modern machine--a nuclear submarine-- which destroys the cobbled phantasm of a ship which the Fishboy tries to make his home.
But even with all these strengths of the novel (and the language, oh the language, in which it is told--"I began as a boy, as a human-being boy, a boy who fled to sea, a boy with a whistling lisp and the silken-tipped fingers of another class" is the opening sentence, and the ear is seduced along from there), I'm sometimes left wondering what to do with all of these vibrantly drawn characters: should I read them as archetypes of outcasts, the metaphorically marginalized? Are they simply interesting diversions? Their heightened realizations make me want to do something with them other than let them be foils or guides to Fishboy himself, to read them metaphorically. And somehow they do read as manifestations of possibility for the boy, but if this is so, then the boy's future is bleak indeed.
In any case, this blog entry has now become nearly as long as the book itself-- I do tend to get swept away by ideas when I come across them in an inventive, image-driven presentation, and can sometimes write about them longer than I should. I just wish I weren't such a slow reader, so I could always be caught up in tempests of the imagination and intellect such as this one.
July 20, 2022
For all it's murk and slime, Fishboy is a loveable contaminant to the otherwise puerile soap dish that calls itself life. A remarkable yarn to be twisted with and not a fiber in its place.
Recommended for those under lidless scrutiny.
Recommended for those under lidless scrutiny.
August 22, 2022
Personalmente no es lo que me esperaba, el libro empieza bien pero flojea conforme iba avanzando y no le encuentro sentido a los personajes del barco y las historias que van contando. He leído algunas novelas de Dirty Works que me han encantado pero esta en concreto me ha decepcionado.
November 6, 2024
Warped, filthy, barnacle-encrusted yarn which drags its narrative anchor and marauds across a roiling main of recollections ghoulish and macabre.
Also very funny. Of particular interest to those with experience of, or ambitions to, cooking at sea.
Also very funny. Of particular interest to those with experience of, or ambitions to, cooking at sea.
June 30, 2020
So brutal and so awesomely written
June 30, 2022
Muy estravagante
September 5, 2022
Surrealista, una petita joia.
April 1, 2023
Esta es mi reseña corta del Niño Pez https://youtu.be/LAfG9s9AMKw
June 27, 2023
Odd. With lots of viscera.
dnf
October 15, 2023I didn’t actually finish this book and left it in the hostel library in Sayulita.
Read
January 10, 2024DNF
August 10, 2024
A fever dream
January 1, 2025
Would make a good Coen brothers movie.
February 17, 2025
198 páginas sin sentido alguno.
March 4, 2012
another reviewer: 'Axe battles and rogue waves and women with meat cleavers'. indeed! and the protagonist, a crippled, left-away boy with a whistling lisp who aches to improve his life. i know that one.
like many a good novel, fishboy was clearly undertaken with a great inspiration. however, frustratingly, after the first 2 chapters the beauty and intensity of the prose wanes. nevertheless, the grotesque characters and high adventure held my attention. i actually read it almost twice. perhaps as much as one and one third again.
(it helps that i love the ocean, and weird and fucked-up people. but who isn't weird and fucked-up? we all came from the sea, after all. and we will all 'melt into the sea, eventually'. we are all fishboys.)
like many a good novel, fishboy was clearly undertaken with a great inspiration. however, frustratingly, after the first 2 chapters the beauty and intensity of the prose wanes. nevertheless, the grotesque characters and high adventure held my attention. i actually read it almost twice. perhaps as much as one and one third again.
(it helps that i love the ocean, and weird and fucked-up people. but who isn't weird and fucked-up? we all came from the sea, after all. and we will all 'melt into the sea, eventually'. we are all fishboys.)
June 26, 2008
When I seek out writing where the language draws attention to itself, I usually turn to modern poetry, which is to say not that often. In his novel Mr. Richard is drunk with language and the results are intoxicating— the consonants are thick, the nouns rounded, caught upon the gag prickles on the back of the tongue, the words blur, the tone drones, the sounds are ground down into an insomniatic over a static radio in a bathtub on lithium W.C. Fields kind of address...and it works, for me at least. The story is pretty good too if you like high seas adventure involving secret tattooed maps on one armed men...
May 25, 2010
I didn't really like this book very much at all. This could be, in part, because I had pretty high expectations for it. After all, according to the book's description, it combined two of my favorite elements in literature: the ocean and feral children. But, much like the sea the book revolved around, my interest lapsed in and out with the regularity of the tide. There would be a fascinating snippet, the imagery-laden text sucking me in, but it would be inevitably followed by a paragraph-long single sentence so heavily overwritten, my interest would completely deflate. I am just so disappointed that I didn't enjoy this more, but at least it was a short novel.
Displaying 1 - 29 of 48 reviews