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Atlantic Black
In this haunting new novel, Katerina Klova and her mother are crossing the Atlantic by ocean liner. When Anne suffers a psychotic breakdown, Katerina is left alone on a ship full of strangers who span classes and stations, all of whom carry their ambitions, fears and obsessions with them. For a seventeen-year-old girl, the daughter of an ambassador, it's an exciting, frightening world to navigate.
Atlantic Black is a psychologically intense and affecting story of unexpected familial betrayal, of a mother and daughter's relationship, of a brother and father whose voices resonate from afar. Personal loneliness, love and loss, are tightly bound to the wider reality of a world set on a fateful course. The legacy of violence, and of how the First World War precipitated the Second World War reverberates as if 'tolling on the inside of a church bell'. Through the eyes of Katerina and her own family's place within a fracturing world, we see the way damage, yet also hope, are passed from one generation to another. A.S. Patri?'s writing is achingly tender, the tone merciless but heartbreaking in its compassion.
The story takes place over one day and night, New Year's Eve, 1939. The RMS Aquitania steams across the Atlantic Ocean. On the horizon, the world is about to explode.
Atlantic Black is a psychologically intense and affecting story of unexpected familial betrayal, of a mother and daughter's relationship, of a brother and father whose voices resonate from afar. Personal loneliness, love and loss, are tightly bound to the wider reality of a world set on a fateful course. The legacy of violence, and of how the First World War precipitated the Second World War reverberates as if 'tolling on the inside of a church bell'. Through the eyes of Katerina and her own family's place within a fracturing world, we see the way damage, yet also hope, are passed from one generation to another. A.S. Patri?'s writing is achingly tender, the tone merciless but heartbreaking in its compassion.
The story takes place over one day and night, New Year's Eve, 1939. The RMS Aquitania steams across the Atlantic Ocean. On the horizon, the world is about to explode.
280 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2017
10 people are currently reading
249 people want to read
About the author
A.S. Patric
22 books58 followersA. S. Patric is an award winning writer and author of Black Rock White City, listed as one of the best novels of 2015 by The Australian and The Australian Book Review. It has been highly commended by the judges of the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards 2016. He is also the author of Las Vegas for Vegans, a story collection shortlisted in the 2013 Queensland Literary Awards. His debut book is The Rattler & other stories, shortlisted for the Lord Mayor’s Award. He is also the author of Bruno Kramzer, a novella shortlisted for the Viva La Novella Prize. He is the winner of the Ned Kelly Award and the Booranga Prize. His stories have featured in The Sydney Morning Herald, Meanjin, Overland, Southerly, Island, Quadrant, in over 20 other literary journals, and in Best Australian Stories 2010 and 2012. He is publishing Atlantic Black late 2016, The Australian and The Readings Monthly calling it one of the most anticipated novels of the year.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
November 22, 2017
This is a hard book to review. Katrina is travelling from Mexico to France on an ocean liner. It is New Years Eve 1939 - the dark clouds of war are on the horizon but on the ship there is gaiety as NY festivities go on. And it is this duality of life and darkness that makes this book quite something.
Katerina is travelling with her mother to meet up with her brother and father, an ambassador gone missing. Her mother has a breakdown and Katerina roams freely through the ship meeting people, reading letters from her brother and avoiding wandering hands. But Katrina is not totally innocent.
The writing is dark, fore-bidding, at times surreal. Religion, literature, letters and occasional pieces of superb dialogue are used.
It is a snap shot of people of all classes, ages, countries and while set in 1938/9, it is really an ageless story. It is how woman are preyed upon. The poor treated roughly. The evil that lurks in some people. The fragility of life.
The more I think about it, the more this book makes sense.
Katerina is travelling with her mother to meet up with her brother and father, an ambassador gone missing. Her mother has a breakdown and Katerina roams freely through the ship meeting people, reading letters from her brother and avoiding wandering hands. But Katrina is not totally innocent.
The writing is dark, fore-bidding, at times surreal. Religion, literature, letters and occasional pieces of superb dialogue are used.
It is a snap shot of people of all classes, ages, countries and while set in 1938/9, it is really an ageless story. It is how woman are preyed upon. The poor treated roughly. The evil that lurks in some people. The fragility of life.
The more I think about it, the more this book makes sense.
November 19, 2017
I have read a number of fabulous books this year but this is certainly one of the best. I truely felt like I was a silent observer on this Atlantic crossing. It has an amazing array of characters, who are woven together with absolute sureness, and It vividly captures a moment in time that is a turning point in history. This story would make an amazing movie although in some respects I feel like I’ve just watched it.
February 17, 2018
I am finding it hard to articulate my misgivings with this one. Although it is well written I found the style kept me at a distance where I could care less about the main character and was never engaged with the story.
November 29, 2017
Wonderful writing ,and I'm not sure why it didn't engage me, even tho it was certainly worth reading.
January 14, 2018
Alec Patric (A.S. Patric) won the Miles Franklin for his novel Black Rock, White City, and this next book – Atlantic Black (Transit Lounge 2017) – is another literary wonder that transports us to a particular time and place, and into the mind of a specific character. In this case, it is 17-year-old Katerina Klova, daughter of an ambassador, embarking on an ocean voyage across the Atlantic. The entire story takes place over a day and a night, the last day of 1938 and the eve of the New Year, and the dawning of 1939. Katerina is aboard the RMS Aquitania, a luxury vessel steaming across the vast seas towards a world that is about to change beyond recognition with the horrors of the approach of another world war.
Half of Katerina’s family – her father and brother – are absent (initially we are uncertain as to the reasons, but much is revealed as the novel progresses), and Katerina is travelling with her mother, Anne, who suffers a psychotic break at the very beginning of the story. She is bundled off to the ship’s hospital or infirmary, and the adolescent Katerina is left to wander the decks and rooms of the immense vessel, encountering other passengers and crew both friendly and sinister, with chance encounters teasing the edges of our knowledge about her and her family’s circumstances, and the fate of those she loves. The novel is peopled with a cast of memorable and unique individuals, each playing a cameo role in Katerina’s peregrinations throughout the evening.
Katerina is a complex character, at one level innocent and naïve, but at another level strangely worldly. She smokes opium, for example, and certainly thinks rather deeply about those she encounters. She is a character suffering both the actions of others against her, and also enacting her own agency towards getting what she wants.
The book gives a detailed depiction of life aboard a ship of that era, both the luxurious berths with accompanying service, and the more lugubrious scene of life below decks, with animals transported to zoos, cargo of all manner, dingy crew quarters and seedy and manipulative sorts.
As Katerina navigates her way through the world of strangers and strange customs, and as the world around her disintegrates and fragments with the shadow of conflict, we are given a distinctive and insightful view into her mind, her thoughts, her desires, her dreams, her regrets and her fears. The ending is both unexpected and surprising; it hangs there on the page, with questions unanswered, a void of possibility. After having walked so closely with Katerina for an entire novel through only 24 hours, the prospect of leaving her at the conclusion of the novel is a wrench; she has stayed with me, haunting my thoughts.
A.S. Patric is a master of not telling, and it is the absences and white spaces of this novel that magnify its significance.
Half of Katerina’s family – her father and brother – are absent (initially we are uncertain as to the reasons, but much is revealed as the novel progresses), and Katerina is travelling with her mother, Anne, who suffers a psychotic break at the very beginning of the story. She is bundled off to the ship’s hospital or infirmary, and the adolescent Katerina is left to wander the decks and rooms of the immense vessel, encountering other passengers and crew both friendly and sinister, with chance encounters teasing the edges of our knowledge about her and her family’s circumstances, and the fate of those she loves. The novel is peopled with a cast of memorable and unique individuals, each playing a cameo role in Katerina’s peregrinations throughout the evening.
Katerina is a complex character, at one level innocent and naïve, but at another level strangely worldly. She smokes opium, for example, and certainly thinks rather deeply about those she encounters. She is a character suffering both the actions of others against her, and also enacting her own agency towards getting what she wants.
The book gives a detailed depiction of life aboard a ship of that era, both the luxurious berths with accompanying service, and the more lugubrious scene of life below decks, with animals transported to zoos, cargo of all manner, dingy crew quarters and seedy and manipulative sorts.
As Katerina navigates her way through the world of strangers and strange customs, and as the world around her disintegrates and fragments with the shadow of conflict, we are given a distinctive and insightful view into her mind, her thoughts, her desires, her dreams, her regrets and her fears. The ending is both unexpected and surprising; it hangs there on the page, with questions unanswered, a void of possibility. After having walked so closely with Katerina for an entire novel through only 24 hours, the prospect of leaving her at the conclusion of the novel is a wrench; she has stayed with me, haunting my thoughts.
A.S. Patric is a master of not telling, and it is the absences and white spaces of this novel that magnify its significance.
October 8, 2017
Atlantic Black is a book which repays patience. Don’t start reading it expecting to understand everything that’s going on, it will take its own time for all the pieces to fall into place.
The central premise is this: what happens if a precocious and superficially worldly teenage girl is suddenly all alone with no one to protect or guide her in a disinterested and irresponsible society? Patric’s microcosm of society is aboard an ocean liner and Katerina is travelling with her mother from Mexico to Europe, when amid the revelry of New Year’s Eve her mother is taken ill and Katerina is free to test out her independence, free from all constraints.
This territory of adolescent risk-taking has already been mined, memorably in Kirsten Krauth’s just_a_girl, (see my review) where Krauth’s character in her adolescent hubris uses internet technology to encounter the kind of monsters all parents fear. But Patric has abandoned the interconnected 21st century to show us this adolescent quest for independence at its most elemental. RMS Aquitania is not a contemporary cruise ship … instead it is an ocean liner suspended wholly in the isolation of the Atlantic Ocean in winter. The year is the fateful 1939 and the only form of communication is the telegraph, open to passengers only during business hours. This is not a scenario where Katerina can text or phone her friends and family or chat to them on Facebook, and she has to negotiate her way round a ship full of complete strangers. Knowing as we do the peril that can befall grown women on cruise ships, this scenario has all the ingredients for disaster, and Katerina has only her own resources and judgement to fall back on…
The strangers she confronts come from all stations of life, including the wealthy leisured class to which Katerina belongs, working people including the staff, and all sorts in between. Not all of them are benign.
So, we see Katerina oscillate between concern for her erratic mother and her delight in her independence. Although worried about her mother’s mental health, Katerina relishes her freedom and tests the boundaries by acting like an adult. There are symbolic changes: she goes about wearing high heels and her mother’s elegant dresses and fur coats; and she signs for meals in the dining room although she doesn’t know how to order because her mother has always done it for her. But there are also behavioural and attitudinal changes: She demands service from staff who are used to treating her as a child under the care of her mother, and she behaves aggressively towards them when they hesitate to do what she wants. More crucially, she puts herself at risk by going about alone when there are, as always, men who will prey on women who are alone and vulnerable.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2017/10/08/a...
The central premise is this: what happens if a precocious and superficially worldly teenage girl is suddenly all alone with no one to protect or guide her in a disinterested and irresponsible society? Patric’s microcosm of society is aboard an ocean liner and Katerina is travelling with her mother from Mexico to Europe, when amid the revelry of New Year’s Eve her mother is taken ill and Katerina is free to test out her independence, free from all constraints.
This territory of adolescent risk-taking has already been mined, memorably in Kirsten Krauth’s just_a_girl, (see my review) where Krauth’s character in her adolescent hubris uses internet technology to encounter the kind of monsters all parents fear. But Patric has abandoned the interconnected 21st century to show us this adolescent quest for independence at its most elemental. RMS Aquitania is not a contemporary cruise ship … instead it is an ocean liner suspended wholly in the isolation of the Atlantic Ocean in winter. The year is the fateful 1939 and the only form of communication is the telegraph, open to passengers only during business hours. This is not a scenario where Katerina can text or phone her friends and family or chat to them on Facebook, and she has to negotiate her way round a ship full of complete strangers. Knowing as we do the peril that can befall grown women on cruise ships, this scenario has all the ingredients for disaster, and Katerina has only her own resources and judgement to fall back on…
The strangers she confronts come from all stations of life, including the wealthy leisured class to which Katerina belongs, working people including the staff, and all sorts in between. Not all of them are benign.
So, we see Katerina oscillate between concern for her erratic mother and her delight in her independence. Although worried about her mother’s mental health, Katerina relishes her freedom and tests the boundaries by acting like an adult. There are symbolic changes: she goes about wearing high heels and her mother’s elegant dresses and fur coats; and she signs for meals in the dining room although she doesn’t know how to order because her mother has always done it for her. But there are also behavioural and attitudinal changes: She demands service from staff who are used to treating her as a child under the care of her mother, and she behaves aggressively towards them when they hesitate to do what she wants. More crucially, she puts herself at risk by going about alone when there are, as always, men who will prey on women who are alone and vulnerable.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2017/10/08/a...
November 29, 2017
This is book is black on many levels, the blackness of the night sea surrounding the ocean liner on New Year's Eve, the possibility of turbulence mirroring the thoughts and deeds of many of the passengers and crew. The writing and originality of the story is powerful. You don't always know what is going on, but then the story is told by Katerina, a fractured 17 year old young woman, who, as she recalls the events leading up to this day, and flounders through an opium haze, also doesn't know what is happening. A climatic end as Katerina realises her mother has shut her out of her life and kept her in the dark about the truth of her family.
December 14, 2017
4.5* This book is very dark, and sort of hauntingly beautiful. Not a whole lot happens in terms of plot, and the book essentially just concerns Katarina over the course of a day and night aboard the Atlantic, but I was so absorbed in her character, her unreliable narration, and the descriptive language that I was completely engrossed. There was a sense of uneasiness throughout the book that worked really well and I'll definitely be reading more from this author.
August 29, 2019
I adored this book. The dreamy wanderings around the boat, the aimless plot, half explained story line and character relationships, all serve to focus the attention firmly on Katarina, the protagonist.
If you like neat bows and tidy endings, this is not for you. If you don't mind being misled by an author, read this now. I loved it!
If you like neat bows and tidy endings, this is not for you. If you don't mind being misled by an author, read this now. I loved it!
April 16, 2018
Yep, five.
When I started this book I thought it was far too clever for me but the writing is so good that I pressed on and the gradually understood the complexity, nuances and intrigue. Patric has drawn fabulous characters, some we don't even meet as with Katerina's brother and father but are so vital to the story as it unfolds. This is a fascinating book but do not finish it at night. It is not a book to put on the beside table and then go to sleep. Katerina will not let you forget her. It is a book to close quietly and let it take hold for as long as it takes......
Besides, I could never sleep with salt water still on my skin.
When I started this book I thought it was far too clever for me but the writing is so good that I pressed on and the gradually understood the complexity, nuances and intrigue. Patric has drawn fabulous characters, some we don't even meet as with Katerina's brother and father but are so vital to the story as it unfolds. This is a fascinating book but do not finish it at night. It is not a book to put on the beside table and then go to sleep. Katerina will not let you forget her. It is a book to close quietly and let it take hold for as long as it takes......
Besides, I could never sleep with salt water still on my skin.
November 28, 2020
More fool me for persisting with this convoluted rubbish.
November 2, 2017
4.5 Stars. When I read his earlier works
Las Vegas for Vegans
and
Bruno Kramzer
, it was clear to me that A S Patric would go on to create literature that would be remembered by many. His writing style is uncompromising and thought-provoking. His debut in long form fiction
Black Rock White City
was stunning. Now with the publication of
Atlantic Black
he has given new meaning to 'haunting'. This is a novel to be read in, if not one, as few sittings as possible. Embarking on its reading is like being sucked into a vortex — there’s no going back, only through.
Read full review >>
June 25, 2021
"We inhabit a world of unfinished stories, and echoes, the repetition of age-old horrors and miseries." by David Malouf.
This quote cited at the start of the book contains the most interesting words in the book!
I was not in the slightest bit enthralled by Katerina Klova ship board wanderings and her mother Anne's "psychotic breakdown" on a ship full of peculiar strangers. The Russian Ambassador's daughter aboard the RMS Aquitania steaming across the Atlantic on New Year's Eve 1939 (the "action" all takes place over one day & night) interested me not one iota.
For the PoMo crew lots of intertexuality with inserted text from Antal Szerb (Hungarian writer); Hils Doolittle (the Imagist poet) and even the Bible.
"Bits and pieces of genius, but none of it comes from me. It's torn-up pages from books in my head" Katerinia declares.
Maybe the writer had modernist intentions by using the 'circadian novel' device as used so brilliantly by Virginia Woolf's stream of consciousness novel 'Mrs Dalloway'; or by James Joyce in his version of the form, 'Ulysees'. In these books a mundane day reverberates with complexity and meaning. In Patric's writing the focus is in the inevitable, impending tragedy alone. Not even the present tense narration make it more vital or real. Yes, the exciting, privileged but frightening world, as Katerina knows it, is about to explode. We know within the fracturing world her family's place & position will be shattered. We know World War II is coming.
A.S. Patric writes with tenderness and compassion despite an overall merciless tone, but it was difficult to even finish this book. I was not "mesmerised", nor was I "walking the slick decks" with Katerina. It is indeed a "grim and glacial" novel (Dominic Amerena), in places quite beautiful and intriguing, particularly for writers.
"Do you see how the dead designed me through words? I breathed their thoughts and their thoughts became my own. I breathe them out and they become yours. Our language is the history of the dead"
These words spoken near the end of the novel, clearly show the nature of the writer's brooding and questioning. He wants to know how to make history (stories from the past) realistic in the present and for a modern audience.
A.S. Patric wrote Black Rock White City and won the 2015 Miles Franklin Award. This is sadly a poor second novel. I'm sure he'll write more novels and I expect to read them because he clearly can tell a story, even set in the past. But these characters were not the ones to ignite the page or thrill me.
Even Peter Lo's fantastic cover design with Stephen Carroll/ Trevillion images & "Beneath the Vortex" by Ray Collins used as an internal image cannot save this book for me.
Although only a novella and published many years ago in 1942, it might be better to read 'The Royal Game' by Austrian writer, Stefan Zweig. It is set on a liner and explores the personal response to the violence of war and an hideous ideology (Nazism). Zweig and wife Lottie had so little hope they killed themselves in 1942.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
This quote cited at the start of the book contains the most interesting words in the book!
I was not in the slightest bit enthralled by Katerina Klova ship board wanderings and her mother Anne's "psychotic breakdown" on a ship full of peculiar strangers. The Russian Ambassador's daughter aboard the RMS Aquitania steaming across the Atlantic on New Year's Eve 1939 (the "action" all takes place over one day & night) interested me not one iota.
For the PoMo crew lots of intertexuality with inserted text from Antal Szerb (Hungarian writer); Hils Doolittle (the Imagist poet) and even the Bible.
"Bits and pieces of genius, but none of it comes from me. It's torn-up pages from books in my head" Katerinia declares.
Maybe the writer had modernist intentions by using the 'circadian novel' device as used so brilliantly by Virginia Woolf's stream of consciousness novel 'Mrs Dalloway'; or by James Joyce in his version of the form, 'Ulysees'. In these books a mundane day reverberates with complexity and meaning. In Patric's writing the focus is in the inevitable, impending tragedy alone. Not even the present tense narration make it more vital or real. Yes, the exciting, privileged but frightening world, as Katerina knows it, is about to explode. We know within the fracturing world her family's place & position will be shattered. We know World War II is coming.
A.S. Patric writes with tenderness and compassion despite an overall merciless tone, but it was difficult to even finish this book. I was not "mesmerised", nor was I "walking the slick decks" with Katerina. It is indeed a "grim and glacial" novel (Dominic Amerena), in places quite beautiful and intriguing, particularly for writers.
"Do you see how the dead designed me through words? I breathed their thoughts and their thoughts became my own. I breathe them out and they become yours. Our language is the history of the dead"
These words spoken near the end of the novel, clearly show the nature of the writer's brooding and questioning. He wants to know how to make history (stories from the past) realistic in the present and for a modern audience.
A.S. Patric wrote Black Rock White City and won the 2015 Miles Franklin Award. This is sadly a poor second novel. I'm sure he'll write more novels and I expect to read them because he clearly can tell a story, even set in the past. But these characters were not the ones to ignite the page or thrill me.
Even Peter Lo's fantastic cover design with Stephen Carroll/ Trevillion images & "Beneath the Vortex" by Ray Collins used as an internal image cannot save this book for me.
Although only a novella and published many years ago in 1942, it might be better to read 'The Royal Game' by Austrian writer, Stefan Zweig. It is set on a liner and explores the personal response to the violence of war and an hideous ideology (Nazism). Zweig and wife Lottie had so little hope they killed themselves in 1942.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
February 6, 2019
This novel is set in one day, New Year's Eve 1938 through to dawn of 01JAN 1939. The story revolves around Katerina Klova, a mature 17 year old, who is on the steamship Aquatania, sailing to Europe from Mexico with her Mother Anne. Her Father is a diplomat already in Europe and in a bit of political trouble. Her Mother is ill and in the infirmary for most of the voyage. Katerina has many encounters with a variety of passengers and crew, and all manners of hopes and fears for the new year are raised, but mostly there is a celebratory air for a bright year ahead. In different situations Katerina is very strong and sure of herself, and other times fearful and tentative. There are letters from her brother that arrived before they departed, who has dropped out of military school and fleeting words from her Father. As she dresses for the night's festivities, she is reminded of words her Father said, "how is it women find such a fashion graceful: Long nails, painted deep red. A capitalist refinement declaring hands not used for labour. A political attitude that is habitual." This was a fascinating look at that time, captured in a single day. It is also a story of a young women, trapped by family expectations and trying to find her own way out.
March 6, 2019
This was a great disappointment. I had heard some interesting reviews but the actuality of reading the book left me underwhelmed.
It is the evening of New Year 1938/39 on board the passenger ship Aquitania, steaming from Mexico to Calais. On board are Katerina and her mother Anna, heading to Europe to meet up with Konrad, Katerina's brother, who is in the military academy in France. When Katerina's mother suffers a breakdown on the voyage, Katerina spends New Year's Eve wandering the ship, encountering various passengers and crew, from the lower class families migrating to a better life, to members of the crew including the ship's doctor, various nurses, waiters and other workers.
This is a strange novel. I wondered what the hell motivated Katerina as she drifted from one encounter to another. I was quite pleased to see the end of her, just annoyed that it took so long (and it is not a long book)
It is the evening of New Year 1938/39 on board the passenger ship Aquitania, steaming from Mexico to Calais. On board are Katerina and her mother Anna, heading to Europe to meet up with Konrad, Katerina's brother, who is in the military academy in France. When Katerina's mother suffers a breakdown on the voyage, Katerina spends New Year's Eve wandering the ship, encountering various passengers and crew, from the lower class families migrating to a better life, to members of the crew including the ship's doctor, various nurses, waiters and other workers.
This is a strange novel. I wondered what the hell motivated Katerina as she drifted from one encounter to another. I was quite pleased to see the end of her, just annoyed that it took so long (and it is not a long book)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 23, 2017
I have no doubt that Atlantic Black, Patrić’s masterpiece to date, will continue its gravid residence at the seat of my unconscious for many months yet. Like a kind of submerged Titanic, I can still feel it barrelling mysteriously along beneath the surface of my apprehension, tossing and agitating the waters of my mind. When I’m feeling braver, I will take another long, hard look at this vast gliding darkness to better discern its true form—or at least add definition to the shadow. For I’m not sure anyone could truly take in this wrenching, magisterial novel in one reading, or even two; that would be like Jonah swallowing the Leviathan.
December 12, 2017
I couldn't put this book down once I got into it, and just finished reading it. A S Patric is a brilliant writer. Surreal and dark, his observations of the people and events are fantastic. It is New Year's Eve 1939, and Katerina Klova and her mother are on the The RMS Aquitania. The story centres on this day, but it also covers the lives of Katerina, her family and other people on the ship. Yet, it is Katerina who is the main force of this great read. And, as her father says "I occasionally read fantstic books or find a story with a miricale it." This read is one of them for me.
November 17, 2018
Really struggled with this book. I found it very depressing. It was trying too hard, in almost pretentious way to include literary quotes, poetry, analogies and all sorts of writing tools that just made it a real struggle to read much like the struggle Katerina was going through. The mother-daughter relationship in particular was cold, abusive and cruel and where I should have felt sympathy...there was little or none.
January 20, 2018
Something goes a little bit awry with Time in this novel.
In ways that are both good and bad.
Bad ways?
Well, sorry to be picky, but The Wizard of Oz was released in cinemas *in* 1939, so it would have been difficult for someone to have seen it in December 1938. Likewise the unusual motherhood story of Lina Medina, who gave birth to her child (it's okay, this is not a spoiler) *in* 1939, so it would have been difficult for someone to have read an article about it prior to December 1938.
Those goofs aside, Time and the narrative playhead's shifting position in relation to it is a major structural and thematic element in this story, and Patric handles those shifts - where he fills in enormous swathes of backstory in a manner that comes on so suddenly you have to keep your wits about you - rather well.
Those are the good ways. And they work.
Protagonist Katerina Klova is a complex, rounded (if not fully filled in) character. We discover this as the plot clicks together, and the many convolutions of Time flicking backwards and forwards reveal to us new aspects of her personality and situation in life. At first it all seems like a merry jaunt at sea, and that we are just floating around, bumping into random stories about... well, things. But then those random stories start to connect up and - like a passenger on the Aquitania - we notice that we are not stationary in the water after all, but actually moving towards a destination. It's not just What Katy Did at Sea, but a bildungsroman that shows us a girl-woman who is testing the bounds of her life, just as she allegorically tests her freedom of the ship (*psst*... The ship is a metaphor, dude! Ships always are, man!).
Katerina is not afraid to experiment with all sorts of things (spoilers, Sweetie!). She seems - I think it's fair to say - to have a liberal attitude toward consequences. Those consequences do, however, quite often show up at her door, and then we see her growing and becoming more complex...
Some of the time, at least.
Some of the time she just changes her clothes and heads off into another apparently random interaction in the mosaic of apparently random plot points that end up making the pretty mural at the end.
And what is that mural?
There is a mystery at the heart of this story, sure, but I think you will be disappointed if you think the mystery is what this novel is about. It's really about Katerina, and why she is the way she is, and why she does the things she does.
I reckon.
It is a bildungsroman, after all.
The ending probably won't surprise you, but that's not the point. At the end of Titanic, the ship sinks (spoiler alert), but that's not the point.
One last thing before I go. This novel - set on New Year's Eve of 1939 (i.e. December 31st 1938) - is promoted as being "an indelible portrait of humanity sailing towards war", and while it is certainly a series of vignettes of humanity (some of them dripping, literally, with blood, by the way), and they are all, indeed, sailing toward war, it could also be said that they are sailing toward the Space Race (although that comes quite a bit later), and the Space Race receives only slightly less mention than the much more imminent second World War. Aside from the goofs mentioned at the head of this review, the novel gives the impression of having been well researched, or at least that A.S. Patric has a (mostly) well organised 1930s scrapbook or Pinterest board (who knew that the Harlem Globetrotters were around in the 1930s?), and that is a definite strength. But this reader, Dear Reader, would have expected that research to have led to a bit more discussion about the swirling clouds of war visible on the horizon.
Read it yourself and let me know what you think.
Thank you to Monash Library for providing me a copy of this novel free, gratis, and for nothing.
In ways that are both good and bad.
Bad ways?
Well, sorry to be picky, but The Wizard of Oz was released in cinemas *in* 1939, so it would have been difficult for someone to have seen it in December 1938. Likewise the unusual motherhood story of Lina Medina, who gave birth to her child (it's okay, this is not a spoiler) *in* 1939, so it would have been difficult for someone to have read an article about it prior to December 1938.
Those goofs aside, Time and the narrative playhead's shifting position in relation to it is a major structural and thematic element in this story, and Patric handles those shifts - where he fills in enormous swathes of backstory in a manner that comes on so suddenly you have to keep your wits about you - rather well.
Those are the good ways. And they work.
Protagonist Katerina Klova is a complex, rounded (if not fully filled in) character. We discover this as the plot clicks together, and the many convolutions of Time flicking backwards and forwards reveal to us new aspects of her personality and situation in life. At first it all seems like a merry jaunt at sea, and that we are just floating around, bumping into random stories about... well, things. But then those random stories start to connect up and - like a passenger on the Aquitania - we notice that we are not stationary in the water after all, but actually moving towards a destination. It's not just What Katy Did at Sea, but a bildungsroman that shows us a girl-woman who is testing the bounds of her life, just as she allegorically tests her freedom of the ship (*psst*... The ship is a metaphor, dude! Ships always are, man!).
Katerina is not afraid to experiment with all sorts of things (spoilers, Sweetie!). She seems - I think it's fair to say - to have a liberal attitude toward consequences. Those consequences do, however, quite often show up at her door, and then we see her growing and becoming more complex...
Some of the time, at least.
Some of the time she just changes her clothes and heads off into another apparently random interaction in the mosaic of apparently random plot points that end up making the pretty mural at the end.
And what is that mural?
There is a mystery at the heart of this story, sure, but I think you will be disappointed if you think the mystery is what this novel is about. It's really about Katerina, and why she is the way she is, and why she does the things she does.
I reckon.
It is a bildungsroman, after all.
The ending probably won't surprise you, but that's not the point. At the end of Titanic, the ship sinks (spoiler alert), but that's not the point.
One last thing before I go. This novel - set on New Year's Eve of 1939 (i.e. December 31st 1938) - is promoted as being "an indelible portrait of humanity sailing towards war", and while it is certainly a series of vignettes of humanity (some of them dripping, literally, with blood, by the way), and they are all, indeed, sailing toward war, it could also be said that they are sailing toward the Space Race (although that comes quite a bit later), and the Space Race receives only slightly less mention than the much more imminent second World War. Aside from the goofs mentioned at the head of this review, the novel gives the impression of having been well researched, or at least that A.S. Patric has a (mostly) well organised 1930s scrapbook or Pinterest board (who knew that the Harlem Globetrotters were around in the 1930s?), and that is a definite strength. But this reader, Dear Reader, would have expected that research to have led to a bit more discussion about the swirling clouds of war visible on the horizon.
Read it yourself and let me know what you think.
Thank you to Monash Library for providing me a copy of this novel free, gratis, and for nothing.
February 15, 2018
I really can't stand this kind of book. Maybe I'm just a bourgeois type of reader but I expect an actual story when I'm reading a novel. There is an undercurrent of an intriguing story here but it never reveals itself fully, just hangs close enough to tantalize then slips away along with the protagonist (and what happens to her is dismally predictible, I could only foresee two possible endings all the way through, and one of them happened to be correct).
I understand what some reviewers have said about it... what appealed to them... but the themes (which are themes I like) are presented here in what seems to me to be a pretentious manner.
Atlantic Black is more a series of ramblings about life and death than a novel. It is more like poetry than prose and perhaps that's why I don't like it (other than the predictability). I never could stand poetry either.
I understand what some reviewers have said about it... what appealed to them... but the themes (which are themes I like) are presented here in what seems to me to be a pretentious manner.
Atlantic Black is more a series of ramblings about life and death than a novel. It is more like poetry than prose and perhaps that's why I don't like it (other than the predictability). I never could stand poetry either.
December 11, 2017
A.S. Patric is an exquisite writer and I eagerly awaited this novel after having loved "Black Rock, White City". But, I felt trapped in a nightmare with this one, in the horror of a character I could not care about. It was dark, despairing - usually my preference. Yet, I'm not even sure I know what it was about, if not the misery and brink of insanity that Katerina finds herself experiencing on a ship across the Atlantic on NYE 1939. I did appreciate the beauty of his language, enough to allow me to finish the "unfinished stor[y]." Katerina's "eyes open as if she is waiting for daybreak" and, with those ending words, I must admit I was waiting, too.
February 24, 2018
It is the eve of 1939. Europe is about to explode into another big war and a mother and daughter are on board the Aquitania returning from South America against the advice of the husband/father. The mother is slightly deranged and the daughter is a precocious 17 year old who has probably seen too much for her tender age. We see a snapshot of their life over a 24 hour(ish) period with many references to what has gone before. No chick-lit novel, this one! A little challenging but somewhat intriguing. Survived to the end at 280 pages.
March 8, 2018
3.5 stars. I could not engage enough to really care about any of the characters - possibly my fault, rather than that of the author. The predatory behaviour towards the lead character was so predictable it just made me want to give up. And the ending was lame - the easy way out I felt. But on the other hand, the writing is so good that I couldn't put it down, so perhaps I am as unreliable as opium-addled Katerina.
May 11, 2018
The writing on the page is absolutely beautiful, which is what I expect from AS Patric. He is a beautiful writer. Unfortunately I found that I couldn't engage fully in this story. I felt distant from the main character, and realised that I just didn't care about her, or the story. I think it may just be where my mind was while I was trying to read it. I am going to have another go at reading it some time in the future, when I am not distracted by so many other things.
November 12, 2017
I was extremely impressed with the Miles Franklin-winning Black Rock, White City and this one is even better. Taking place over the course of a day on New Year's Eve 1938 on the ocean liner Aquitania, this novel ranges more broadly over time and space as it explores the life of its main protagonist, Katerina Klova. Beautifully written.
January 13, 2018
This was a very dark, elegant story. While it is set in the past, all feels very present and relevant. The slow reveal of events over a period of one day is performed delicately. My heart aches for the tender, vulnerable Katerina.
September 12, 2017
Dense and visceral. See Books+Publishing for my review: (paywalled)
https://www.booksandpublishing.com.au...
https://www.booksandpublishing.com.au...
December 28, 2017
Surface text requires deep scratching
December 29, 2017
3.5 stars. Story is fascinating but took me a long time to read... I'm not sure why I wasn't engaged, but the last 100 pages made the long-haul worth while
January 5, 2018
Lovely descriptive writing but the plot didn’t really do too much for me - it won’t stop me from seeking out other books by the author.
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