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Cove
Out at sea, in a sudden storm, a man is struck by lightning. When he wakes, injured and adrift on a kayak, his memory of who he is and how he came to be there is all but shattered. Now he must pit himself against the pain and rely on his instincts to get back to shore, and to the woman he dimly senses waiting for his return.
120 pages, Hardcover
First published November 3, 2016
28 people are currently reading
2526 people want to read
About the author
Cynan Jones
21 books363 followersCynan Jones was born in 1975 near Aberaeron, Wales where he now lives and works.
He is the author of five short novels, The Long Dry, Everything I Found on the Beach, Bird, Blood, Snow, The Dig, and Cove.
He has been longlisted and shortlisted for numerous international prizes and won a Society of Authors Betty Trask Award (2007), a Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize (2014), the Wales Book of the Year Fiction Prize (2015) and the BBC National Short Story Award (2017).
His work has been published in more than twenty countries, and short stories have appeared on BBC Radio 4 and in a number of anthologies and publications including Granta Magazine and The New Yorker. He also wrote the screenplay for an episode of the BAFTA-winning crime drama Hinterland, and Three Tales, a collection of stories for children.
The Independent on Sunday declared "There is no doubt that Jones is one of the most talented writers in Britain” and he is frequently
acknowledged as one of the most exciting voices of his generation.
His most recent work, Stillicide, is a collection of twelve stories commissioned by BBC Radio 4 that aired over the summer 2019.
He is also responsible for 'The Fart'.
He is the author of five short novels, The Long Dry, Everything I Found on the Beach, Bird, Blood, Snow, The Dig, and Cove.
He has been longlisted and shortlisted for numerous international prizes and won a Society of Authors Betty Trask Award (2007), a Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize (2014), the Wales Book of the Year Fiction Prize (2015) and the BBC National Short Story Award (2017).
His work has been published in more than twenty countries, and short stories have appeared on BBC Radio 4 and in a number of anthologies and publications including Granta Magazine and The New Yorker. He also wrote the screenplay for an episode of the BAFTA-winning crime drama Hinterland, and Three Tales, a collection of stories for children.
The Independent on Sunday declared "There is no doubt that Jones is one of the most talented writers in Britain” and he is frequently
acknowledged as one of the most exciting voices of his generation.
His most recent work, Stillicide, is a collection of twelve stories commissioned by BBC Radio 4 that aired over the summer 2019.
He is also responsible for 'The Fart'.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 271 reviews
August 26, 2023
I can not forget this read. I refer to it in my head, I think about its stark, vividly limned images. I am so deeply glad Author Cynan wrote it. This is my 2021 Six-Stars-of-Five read.
Rating: 5* 6 stars of five
Don't ever, ever think you're in a dark place again, is the primary message of this novella-cum-prose poem.
Our nameless point-of-view man is busy preparing to take his kayak out of the cove near his home. With his experienced preparations, catching a fish for his supper and with the material goods he needs to make the short trip comfortable, there is a heaviness. The foreboding the above passage evokes in me is matched by the fact that he's there to scatter his father's ashes. But the world doesn't have time to mourn:
These passages make me think I live in Author Cynan's head. I see and hear them in realtime. I am deeply unsettled...what is coming must be difficult because these quotidian sensations are so powerful. The ashes, the small moments of daily reality going on despite the huge gaping hole of his father's death...going out of the shelter of this homely cove, noticing its real-world comforts...
...
...
...I've read your books before, Author Cynan, something terrible this way comes.
A moment truly as before-and-after as it is portrayed to be: A lightning strike.
While alone at sea. In a kayak. With a few hours' trip supplies.
Waking up alive, though after how long he doesn't know and with the arm that conducted the current dead (the fern-like pattern of Lichtenberg figures disfiguring his now-useless hand and arm), he inventories his few supplies and begins preparations to survive. It is grueling to read and almost reeks of experience, which I hope is second-hand:
That image is both terrifying to me, and gorgeous to read. What a superbly wrought way to describe the sensation of losing a piece of yourself, your experience. Where one expects resonant musical pleasure, there is the presence of silence and not just the absence of sound.
There is a miserable fight, with the good luck of an itchy sunfish rubbing against his kayak and beneficently steering it towards land; there is a moment of aesthetic joy as night luminescent seas trace the presence of his hand; there is so much work and so much pain:
That's effective self-talk for a man who's been through some huge change. "They" are the woman pregnant with his child, and the unborn person itself. For, as the sea's many thefts (water, skin) bite ever deeper, he needs this goal to focus on, and needs also his dead father's ghost in his own head reminding him how to do this, how to survive.
An image of fatherhood that I am so unspeakably glad to see in fiction, littered as it is with cheating lying beating abusing men.
The ordeal continues. The night and the day and then there is land...land within sight...with lights...and he MacGyvers up a sail to speed his bonny boat...
...
...into a squall.
Here is a man driven to Be There, never to leave, always support and defend, finally driven to his uttermost extreme in search of survival.
And that is where we end.
I close my remarks by noting that this is the book I wish The Old Man and the Sea had been, but was not.
Rating: 5* 6 stars of five
Don't ever, ever think you're in a dark place again, is the primary message of this novella-cum-prose poem.
He is holding his hands in the water, rubbing the blood from them, when the hairs on his arms stand up. The sway briefly, like seaweed in the current. Then lie down again.
He looks up. A strange ruffle come across the surface.
The birds had lifted suddenly and gone away. As if there were some signal. They are flecks now, a hiatus disappearing against the light off the sea.
He is far enough out for the land to have paled in view.
Our nameless point-of-view man is busy preparing to take his kayak out of the cove near his home. With his experienced preparations, catching a fish for his supper and with the material goods he needs to make the short trip comfortable, there is a heaviness. The foreboding the above passage evokes in me is matched by the fact that he's there to scatter his father's ashes. But the world doesn't have time to mourn:
There was a piping of oystercatchers, a clap of water as a fish jumped. He saw it for a moment, a silver nail. A thing deliberately, for a brief astounding moment, broken from its element.
These passages make me think I live in Author Cynan's head. I see and hear them in realtime. I am deeply unsettled...what is coming must be difficult because these quotidian sensations are so powerful. The ashes, the small moments of daily reality going on despite the huge gaping hole of his father's death...going out of the shelter of this homely cove, noticing its real-world comforts...
...
...
...I've read your books before, Author Cynan, something terrible this way comes.
A moment truly as before-and-after as it is portrayed to be: A lightning strike.
While alone at sea. In a kayak. With a few hours' trip supplies.
Waking up alive, though after how long he doesn't know and with the arm that conducted the current dead (the fern-like pattern of Lichtenberg figures disfiguring his now-useless hand and arm), he inventories his few supplies and begins preparations to survive. It is grueling to read and almost reeks of experience, which I hope is second-hand:
He takes off the buoyancy aid & pulls on the thick sweater, useless arm first. The smell of the sweater triggers something, but it is like a piano key hitting strings that are gone.
That image is both terrifying to me, and gorgeous to read. What a superbly wrought way to describe the sensation of losing a piece of yourself, your experience. Where one expects resonant musical pleasure, there is the presence of silence and not just the absence of sound.
There is a miserable fight, with the good luck of an itchy sunfish rubbing against his kayak and beneficently steering it towards land; there is a moment of aesthetic joy as night luminescent seas trace the presence of his hand; there is so much work and so much pain:
If you disappear you will grow into a myth for them. You will exist only as an absence. If you get back, you will exist as a legend.
That's effective self-talk for a man who's been through some huge change. "They" are the woman pregnant with his child, and the unborn person itself. For, as the sea's many thefts (water, skin) bite ever deeper, he needs this goal to focus on, and needs also his dead father's ghost in his own head reminding him how to do this, how to survive.
An image of fatherhood that I am so unspeakably glad to see in fiction, littered as it is with cheating lying beating abusing men.
The ordeal continues. The night and the day and then there is land...land within sight...with lights...and he MacGyvers up a sail to speed his bonny boat...
...
...into a squall.
All of his life he's had a recurring dream: the car leaves the road. It is never the impact that terrifies him, wakes him. His fear comes the moment he feels the car go.
His life does not pass before his eyes. There is even a point he feels calm. But then he sees the faces of the people he loves. He sees their faces as they see him go.
Here is a man driven to Be There, never to leave, always support and defend, finally driven to his uttermost extreme in search of survival.
And that is where we end.
I close my remarks by noting that this is the book I wish The Old Man and the Sea had been, but was not.
August 12, 2018
A man is out fishing in his kayak, loving his life, and enjoying the day. A rogue thunderstorm charges in toward land and he is caught too far from shore to make it back. Thunder and lightning split the air into atomic particles and he knows he’s in trouble. Then lightning strikes.
This novelette is a petrifying story as the protagonist struggles with - and against - the ominous and omnipotent power of nature holding him in its grasp. He can’t remember who he is or what he is doing out there – nor is he aware of where ‘there’ is. The belongings in the kayak feed him clues:
”The smell of the sweater triggers something, but it is like a piano key hitting strings that are gone.”
The man feels inwardly drawn toward a woman he senses but can’t name and he knows she is waiting for him somewhere on land. If he can just find land and find her. And there we are right with him in the boat on his quest. We are inside his mind, and we are part of the pain, the hope, the fears and frustrations and uncertainty; striving for land; striving to live.
I recommend this to anyone who enjoys writing that pulls one into the story and so entirely involves us that we live it ourselves.
Thank you to GR Friend, Betsy, whose review sent me on a mission to find this novelette.
This novelette is a petrifying story as the protagonist struggles with - and against - the ominous and omnipotent power of nature holding him in its grasp. He can’t remember who he is or what he is doing out there – nor is he aware of where ‘there’ is. The belongings in the kayak feed him clues:
”The smell of the sweater triggers something, but it is like a piano key hitting strings that are gone.”
The man feels inwardly drawn toward a woman he senses but can’t name and he knows she is waiting for him somewhere on land. If he can just find land and find her. And there we are right with him in the boat on his quest. We are inside his mind, and we are part of the pain, the hope, the fears and frustrations and uncertainty; striving for land; striving to live.
I recommend this to anyone who enjoys writing that pulls one into the story and so entirely involves us that we live it ourselves.
Thank you to GR Friend, Betsy, whose review sent me on a mission to find this novelette.
February 28, 2021
A raw, mesmerising, narrative poem, albeit disguised as prose.
A-lone, in a kayak, to scatter his father’s ashes.
A communion - with memories, with the elements.
Lightning!
A transformation in an instant - disconnected from everything, from himself.
A battle to survive - to get to safety, to return to “her” and their unborn child...
"If you disappear you will grow into a myth for them.
You will exist only as absence.
If you get back, you will exist as a legend."
Image: Calm before the storm. “Catch the Breeze” (west coast of Ireland) by Stephen McGuinness. (Source)
Injured and adrift without a paddle.
He swishes back and forth:
between life and death,
between tenses,
between “I” and “you”.
I too was at sea,
with little sense of time or distance,
his or mine.
Rippled memories recall my father’s ashes
as they caught the light,
like the stardust we’re made of.
Sparkling a startling final farewell,
as they fanned across the surface,
sinking slowly on their final journey.
Ashes to water.
And a stream of silent tears.
Salt water into fresh.
Communion and coalescence.
Distillation and transfiguration.
The circle of life.
Image: Alone in a boat, under threatening skies. “Mercy Seat”, by Stephen McGuinness. (Source)
Quotes
The book is written in short paragraphs, with extra space between each one. I’ve added line breaks to emphasise the poetry of it, but not changed any words.
“He swings the fish from the water…
It gasps, thrashes, drums.
Something rapid and primal,
ceremonial,
in the shallow of the open boat.”
“He’d had to go through so many possessions,
things that exploded with memories…
but it was the opposite with the ashes.
He was trying to hold away the fact that they knew nothing of what they were.”
“The water beneath him, suddenly aglut.
Sentinel somehow, with jellyfish.”
“His consciousness a snapped cord
his mind was trying to pull back together.”
“A sense of himself,
a fly trapped the wrong side of glass.”
“It is a spell.
They are a quick shape,
a liquid in their own right
through the black water,
bright spirits under him.” [dolphins]
“The sand is wet, intimate.”
“The smell of the jumper triggers something,
but it is like a piano key hitting strings that are gone.”
“A flock of jellyfish, like negligées.”
“A metallic sheen comes to the water, like cutlery.
Like metal much touched.
The white clouds glow, a sort of leaden at the edge.”
Image: A cove, a safe haven. “Inishowen, Donegal” by Stephen McGuinness. (Source)
Elephant in the boat?
It’s impossible to read this and not think of Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea (see my review HERE). But it’s unfair to both. Yes, this is also a poetic, multi-sensory, almost liturgical story about surviving alone at sea, while remembering loved ones back on land, but it is very much its own story, told in its own way. Also, Hemingway was adamant that "There isn't any symbolism” in his tale, whereas Jones explicitly mentions auguries, signs, and echoes, and the many likely candidates include a dolphin, doll, butterfly, wren, banner, and sunfish, as well as sunken towns and u-boats.
It may also be similar to the 2014 Robert Redford film, All Is Lost, but I’ve not watched it.
Celtic waters
Stephen McGuinness’ pictures echo my journey through Cynan Jones’ story. But McGuinness is Irish whereas Jones is Welsh. I hope they don’t mind: they’re both Celts, from lands where the sun sets over the sea, to the west.
A-lone, in a kayak, to scatter his father’s ashes.
A communion - with memories, with the elements.
Lightning!
A transformation in an instant - disconnected from everything, from himself.
A battle to survive - to get to safety, to return to “her” and their unborn child...
"If you disappear you will grow into a myth for them.
You will exist only as absence.
If you get back, you will exist as a legend."
Image: Calm before the storm. “Catch the Breeze” (west coast of Ireland) by Stephen McGuinness. (Source)
Injured and adrift without a paddle.
He swishes back and forth:
between life and death,
between tenses,
between “I” and “you”.
I too was at sea,
with little sense of time or distance,
his or mine.
Rippled memories recall my father’s ashes
as they caught the light,
like the stardust we’re made of.
Sparkling a startling final farewell,
as they fanned across the surface,
sinking slowly on their final journey.
Ashes to water.
And a stream of silent tears.
Salt water into fresh.
Communion and coalescence.
Distillation and transfiguration.
The circle of life.
Image: Alone in a boat, under threatening skies. “Mercy Seat”, by Stephen McGuinness. (Source)
Quotes
The book is written in short paragraphs, with extra space between each one. I’ve added line breaks to emphasise the poetry of it, but not changed any words.
“He swings the fish from the water…
It gasps, thrashes, drums.
Something rapid and primal,
ceremonial,
in the shallow of the open boat.”
“He’d had to go through so many possessions,
things that exploded with memories…
but it was the opposite with the ashes.
He was trying to hold away the fact that they knew nothing of what they were.”
“The water beneath him, suddenly aglut.
Sentinel somehow, with jellyfish.”
“His consciousness a snapped cord
his mind was trying to pull back together.”
“A sense of himself,
a fly trapped the wrong side of glass.”
“It is a spell.
They are a quick shape,
a liquid in their own right
through the black water,
bright spirits under him.” [dolphins]
“The sand is wet, intimate.”
“The smell of the jumper triggers something,
but it is like a piano key hitting strings that are gone.”
“A flock of jellyfish, like negligées.”
“A metallic sheen comes to the water, like cutlery.
Like metal much touched.
The white clouds glow, a sort of leaden at the edge.”
Image: A cove, a safe haven. “Inishowen, Donegal” by Stephen McGuinness. (Source)
Elephant in the boat?
It’s impossible to read this and not think of Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea (see my review HERE). But it’s unfair to both. Yes, this is also a poetic, multi-sensory, almost liturgical story about surviving alone at sea, while remembering loved ones back on land, but it is very much its own story, told in its own way. Also, Hemingway was adamant that "There isn't any symbolism” in his tale, whereas Jones explicitly mentions auguries, signs, and echoes, and the many likely candidates include a dolphin, doll, butterfly, wren, banner, and sunfish, as well as sunken towns and u-boats.
It may also be similar to the 2014 Robert Redford film, All Is Lost, but I’ve not watched it.
Celtic waters
Stephen McGuinness’ pictures echo my journey through Cynan Jones’ story. But McGuinness is Irish whereas Jones is Welsh. I hope they don’t mind: they’re both Celts, from lands where the sun sets over the sea, to the west.
November 2, 2018
A man, his name is never mentioned, goes out to sea in his kyak, to scatter his father's ashes. A storm arises unexpectedly, and the man is struck by lightening. His memory now I fragments, survival becomes his focus. A novella that ecapsulates the elemental theme of man versus nature.
Written in a very stark, to the point style, we are furnished with only enough to highlight the plight of this man. The visceral descriptions of sea, birds and fish contrast the beauty of his surrounding as he is both fighting for his survival, his life, and trying to remember who he is and why he is where he finds himself. The fragmented paragraphs represent his own disorientation. Very effectively done. They also cause the tension to rise in the reader, as bullet points are hammered home. A limited tale, but one done very well.
Thanks to my friend Diane, who told me to keep reading, and not put it down. She was so right because had I not done so I would have not gotten the full effect of this man's predicament, nor the fear and tension present.
Written in a very stark, to the point style, we are furnished with only enough to highlight the plight of this man. The visceral descriptions of sea, birds and fish contrast the beauty of his surrounding as he is both fighting for his survival, his life, and trying to remember who he is and why he is where he finds himself. The fragmented paragraphs represent his own disorientation. Very effectively done. They also cause the tension to rise in the reader, as bullet points are hammered home. A limited tale, but one done very well.
Thanks to my friend Diane, who told me to keep reading, and not put it down. She was so right because had I not done so I would have not gotten the full effect of this man's predicament, nor the fear and tension present.
December 13, 2016
This is a mere slip of a book, coming in at just under a hundred pages. It can be comfortably read in a single sitting but the unsettling story which lies behind its beautiful cover will not easily be forgotten.
A man is at sea in a kayak, intending to scatter his father's ashes, when a storm suddenly breaks and he is struck by lightning. He awakes some time later, partially paralysed and with a fractured memory. Adrift miles from land, he must fight the unbearable pain and use every sailing trick he knows to survive and return to the pregnant woman waiting for him on shore.
The intense discomfort and disorientation of the unnamed protagonist is sharply observed - he has a "memory like a dropped pack of cards." At one point the smell of a jumper triggers something but it is "like a key hitting strings that are gone." He battles gamely against the shifting sea which is "alive like a living skin." But the randomness of the water becomes terrifying and we begin to wonder if he will ever see his loved one again.
It's a simple tale, but the power lies in the telling. Each word of this haunting story is so carefully chosen, it feels more poetry than prose. Cove is an arresting, hypnotic novel which is full of the most striking imagery and impeccable writing.
A man is at sea in a kayak, intending to scatter his father's ashes, when a storm suddenly breaks and he is struck by lightning. He awakes some time later, partially paralysed and with a fractured memory. Adrift miles from land, he must fight the unbearable pain and use every sailing trick he knows to survive and return to the pregnant woman waiting for him on shore.
The intense discomfort and disorientation of the unnamed protagonist is sharply observed - he has a "memory like a dropped pack of cards." At one point the smell of a jumper triggers something but it is "like a key hitting strings that are gone." He battles gamely against the shifting sea which is "alive like a living skin." But the randomness of the water becomes terrifying and we begin to wonder if he will ever see his loved one again.
It's a simple tale, but the power lies in the telling. Each word of this haunting story is so carefully chosen, it feels more poetry than prose. Cove is an arresting, hypnotic novel which is full of the most striking imagery and impeccable writing.
March 21, 2021
A short novella.. a man takes his kayak out to sea to cast his fathers ashes, he is struck by lightening when a storm comes through....when he comes to...he is injured and doesn’t know who he is or why he’s out at sea.
He’s trying to survive and reach land.
Serene yet intense!
He’s trying to survive and reach land.
Serene yet intense!
July 24, 2018
This is a tiny masterpiece (92 pages with plenty of empty space in them) and possibly the most immediately visceral book I’ve ever read. How on earth did Cynan Jones write this without firsthand experience of being hit by lightning and adrift in the ocean? I cannot imagine how anybody could write this, yet it inspires me as a writer to discover my own depths in a new way.
I am so glad that an audio book of this does not exist, and it never should. This is a story and voice that you need to hear reverberating inside your own head. You need to experience the blank spaces in the text of this book and reread sentences and sections, letting them go down slowly. All of it contributes to the remarkable feeling of being subsumed by Nature in a journey into the loss of everything.
7/24/18 Update
I purchased a copy of this after reading the library book, and I just reread it. It is even more powerful the second time--when you know the story and can make more sense of the out-of-chronological-time events. I'm astounded. This is a book I'll return to whenever I need a certain kind of fix: good, pure, pithy perfection.
I am so glad that an audio book of this does not exist, and it never should. This is a story and voice that you need to hear reverberating inside your own head. You need to experience the blank spaces in the text of this book and reread sentences and sections, letting them go down slowly. All of it contributes to the remarkable feeling of being subsumed by Nature in a journey into the loss of everything.
7/24/18 Update
I purchased a copy of this after reading the library book, and I just reread it. It is even more powerful the second time--when you know the story and can make more sense of the out-of-chronological-time events. I'm astounded. This is a book I'll return to whenever I need a certain kind of fix: good, pure, pithy perfection.
October 18, 2018
"It does not matter who you are. You know what you are physically, and that you're in a kayak somewhere on the ocean. It only matters what you are, right now".
As a reader, that is exactly where I am, with this unnamed man trying to survive after being struck by lightning. I have never read anything that so immediately placed me in the mind and body of the narrator as this did so completely. I felt the salt on my skin, the terrible thirst, the terror of my predicament, and tiny rays of hope as I tried to survive. All in 96 pages. My heart is still racing.
My first inclination was to rate this 4 stars, but I already know I'll be thinking about this one for a while, so that in itself deserves an extra star. This is not a book, but an experience.
As a reader, that is exactly where I am, with this unnamed man trying to survive after being struck by lightning. I have never read anything that so immediately placed me in the mind and body of the narrator as this did so completely. I felt the salt on my skin, the terrible thirst, the terror of my predicament, and tiny rays of hope as I tried to survive. All in 96 pages. My heart is still racing.
My first inclination was to rate this 4 stars, but I already know I'll be thinking about this one for a while, so that in itself deserves an extra star. This is not a book, but an experience.
April 7, 2018
Five stars and an immediate jump to my favorites list!
In the opening pages of this brilliant short novel, a pregnant woman walking in a field finds the picked over carcass of a homing pigeon that has been attacked by a falcon.
“First the burst of feathers; further on, the wing, torn off at the shoulder. It had blown across the field like a sail, the sinews and scraps of it dried translucent in the sun.”
She senses that the pigeon was trying to get back home but had been thrown off track, that it saw its fate coming and died in a state of terror. Thinking of its owner who might be wondering about its fate, she retrieves the identification rings. Shortly thereafter, she walks down to the beach and finds a child’s lost doll with an identification tag of its own washed up along the shore. I’d forgotten about these seemingly small details until I went back and read the novel a second time. I should have known better. Jones is a master of the short novel form and chooses his words with care. He rarely includes a purely decorative element and symbolism and foreshadowing often rest in the smallest of details.
Other lost things float throughout the rest of the novel. Among them are a mackerel separated from its shoal, a butterfly swept miles from land and, last but not least, the protagonist of the story: a man at sea in a kayak who is struggling for survival after a lightening strike. The man is injured mentally as well as physically and can’t remember who he is, why is where he is, or even what happened.
“When he saw the address label on the bag he saw his name. It was like looking into an empty cup. Then he heard a voice say it. The knowledge it gave down was as delicate as an image sitting on the surface of the water, disrupting as he moved to reach it.”
On one level, this is the story of the protagonist’s struggle to return home. It is exciting and filled with the sort of narrative tension found in more traditional Man Vs. Nature stories like Jack London’s “To Start a Fire” and Hemingway’s “The Old Man and The Sea”. Any similarities end there. This is a much more deeply interior story and the conflict is more directly centered on Man Vs. Self than Man Vs. Nature. Also, the writing is much more freely and confidently experimental. Sentence fragments, multiple POVs and shifting tenses all serve to highlight the protagonist’s mentally disoriented state. I do admire Ernest Hemingway and Jack London but Cynan Jones fills my spirit in a way that they never have. He is one of my few favorite contemporary authors and I think this is his best writing yet.
”The sunfish stayed with him for hours. It could be said it steered him. It was almost the size of the kayak in length and bumped and rubbed the boat with a droll instinct, as a cow might a post.
The sunfish is not fishable, not edible, and no instinct has been driven into it to stay away from man. And perhaps it was the warmth of the boat it liked, with the plastic heated by the sun. Or perhaps it was something more.
But it stayed and bumped the boat for hours, and by doing so steered it; and it cannot be known whether it was deliberate, benevolent, that it did not steer the kayak farther out to sea.”
To me, life is all about serendipity and synchronicity if it’s about anything at all.
I also should thank Elizabeth I. of Catapult Books for contacting me out of the blue and offering me a free copy of this beautiful book. Out of convenience, I’ve been reading a lot of novels in e-format lately and had almost forgotten what a pleasure a physical book can be. This is a particularly gorgeous paper on board edition with a semi-rubberized texture to its cover that feels great in hand. The page layout is also beautiful with nicely balanced positive and negative spaces. Thanks again, it’s a keeper.
December 22, 2025
Uitgebeend geschreven, tot op het bot, schrapend in de wonde, waardoor je als lezer, net als het hoofdpersonage, de hele tijd alert moet blijven. Cynan Jones doet dat meesterlijk, laat je weer eens beseffen dat er eindeloos veel manieren zijn om iets te vertellen.
Je denkt bij dit boek uiteraard aan Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, maar 'Cove' ontvouwt zich op een nog beperkter narratief oppervlak. Een weerloos dobberend bootje van niks, een door de bliksem getroffen man, allebei overgelaten aan de natuurelementen, met niet meer dan een aantal voorwerpen en een overlevingsinstinct dat het moet hebben van flarden geheugen.
Zelden heb ik kwetsbaarheid en pijn zo intens ervaren tijdens het lezen. Niettegenstaande de uitgepuurde eenvoud blijft dit boekje als zoutkorsten op je huid en je netvlies kleven. Sterk proza!
Je denkt bij dit boek uiteraard aan Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, maar 'Cove' ontvouwt zich op een nog beperkter narratief oppervlak. Een weerloos dobberend bootje van niks, een door de bliksem getroffen man, allebei overgelaten aan de natuurelementen, met niet meer dan een aantal voorwerpen en een overlevingsinstinct dat het moet hebben van flarden geheugen.
Zelden heb ik kwetsbaarheid en pijn zo intens ervaren tijdens het lezen. Niettegenstaande de uitgepuurde eenvoud blijft dit boekje als zoutkorsten op je huid en je netvlies kleven. Sterk proza!
July 23, 2025
3,5*
Gostei do estilo meio poético e assertivo de Cynan Jones nesta pequena história sobre um homem que acorda, no seu barco, depois de uma tempestade, sem memória do que aconteceu e de quem é. Estive muito indecisa entre as 3 e as 4 estrelas. Impressionou-me bastante a descrição da tentativa de sobreviver a todo o custo, sem saber sequer para quê, com uma vaga ideia da existência de uma mulher que o espera. Pretendo ler mais do autor.
Gostei do estilo meio poético e assertivo de Cynan Jones nesta pequena história sobre um homem que acorda, no seu barco, depois de uma tempestade, sem memória do que aconteceu e de quem é. Estive muito indecisa entre as 3 e as 4 estrelas. Impressionou-me bastante a descrição da tentativa de sobreviver a todo o custo, sem saber sequer para quê, com uma vaga ideia da existência de uma mulher que o espera. Pretendo ler mais do autor.
January 1, 2018
Hauntingly beautiful. A simple serene story, beautifully told. About a man who goes out into the sea to shatter the ashes of his father when a lightingstorm overtakes him and knocks him out. When he recovers conciousness he is severely wounded. He tries to survive and reach land.
This is my last book of 2017 i presume ;) Happy 2018 everyone!
This is my last book of 2017 i presume ;) Happy 2018 everyone!
April 8, 2019
A short, intense, poetic novella telling of a man struggling to survive in a kayak at sea, with no paddle and only one working arm, after being struck by lightning. Every word counts.
This book grew out of the short story "The Edge of the Shoal", which won the BBC National Short Story award in 2017.
This book grew out of the short story "The Edge of the Shoal", which won the BBC National Short Story award in 2017.
October 29, 2018
Thoughts soon.
February 14, 2023
This is the fourth Cynan Jones book I've had the pleasure of reading, along with The Long Dry, The Dig and Everything I Found on the Beach. An intense and raw writer that leaves an indelible mark every time.
In Cove, a man is hit by lightening while out at sea to spread his fathers ashes. When he comes to, he is alone in his kayak - lost and unsure of who he is.
Written in typical sparse prose, mesmerisingly poetic, Jones's lack of words leaves much room for vivid imagery and stark reflection. A truly phenomenal writer.
In Cove, a man is hit by lightening while out at sea to spread his fathers ashes. When he comes to, he is alone in his kayak - lost and unsure of who he is.
Written in typical sparse prose, mesmerisingly poetic, Jones's lack of words leaves much room for vivid imagery and stark reflection. A truly phenomenal writer.
November 20, 2019
Cynan Jones is an author I’ve been interested in for a while, so I finally decided to pick up Cove for Novellas in November. It’s under 100 pages and it’s the sort of book that raises more questions than it answers, so I’m finding it particularly difficult to review, but I also found it to be an incredibly worthwhile read.
Set out at sea, Cove follows a man in a kayak who’s been struck by lightning. It’s a traditional survival story in that sense, but nothing about this book is straightforward; it’s equally about grief and memory. This novella’s main strength is Jones’s prose style – lyrical, poetic, and disorienting – but that disorientation necessarily means that you’re signing yourself up for something of a rocky reading experience. Which is my main complaint: for such a short book, it took me longer than I’d have liked to really get my footing with Jones’s style. But days later I’m still thinking about this, and I’m really looking forward to reading more from him in the future, and perhaps revisiting this at some point.
Set out at sea, Cove follows a man in a kayak who’s been struck by lightning. It’s a traditional survival story in that sense, but nothing about this book is straightforward; it’s equally about grief and memory. This novella’s main strength is Jones’s prose style – lyrical, poetic, and disorienting – but that disorientation necessarily means that you’re signing yourself up for something of a rocky reading experience. Which is my main complaint: for such a short book, it took me longer than I’d have liked to really get my footing with Jones’s style. But days later I’m still thinking about this, and I’m really looking forward to reading more from him in the future, and perhaps revisiting this at some point.
September 23, 2018
4.5 stars.
“Cove2 (kəʊv) n. a fellow; a man.”
A vivid, short story about a man who sets out in a kayak to scatter his father’s ashes into the ocean. When the man is struck by lightning, we readers are plunged into his condition and his struggle to survive. Instead of trying to analyze this read, I’m going to share a few of the images Cynan Jones etched deep into my mind: a sea-tossed doll, a frying pan, 4 inches of fresh water, a mystical sunfish, a floating metal sign, a swollen belly, a finger torn and bitten, the oily taste of raw fish, a wren feather, layers of ash, a crystallized eye, glow-in-the-dark dots on a nursery ceiling, a bird trapped in a cat’s mouth, a missing paddle. If you read this story, my “review” will make sense. A new author for me, and a unique voice. I’ll be hunting down his other writing.
“Cove2 (kəʊv) n. a fellow; a man.”
A vivid, short story about a man who sets out in a kayak to scatter his father’s ashes into the ocean. When the man is struck by lightning, we readers are plunged into his condition and his struggle to survive. Instead of trying to analyze this read, I’m going to share a few of the images Cynan Jones etched deep into my mind: a sea-tossed doll, a frying pan, 4 inches of fresh water, a mystical sunfish, a floating metal sign, a swollen belly, a finger torn and bitten, the oily taste of raw fish, a wren feather, layers of ash, a crystallized eye, glow-in-the-dark dots on a nursery ceiling, a bird trapped in a cat’s mouth, a missing paddle. If you read this story, my “review” will make sense. A new author for me, and a unique voice. I’ll be hunting down his other writing.
May 19, 2018
”A Baía” é romance ou uma narrativa curta e inventiva com sequências factuais e imaginativas, com fragmentos oníricos, que permanecem num encadeamento de sobrevivência e de regresso de um homem.
A sinopse de ”A Baía” é elucidativa...
Tal como em ”A Cova” a luta pela sobrevivência física e mental atingem o desconforto físico e o espírito da devastação e dos perigos incontestáveis da vida e das suas vivências, e do poder destruidor da natureza. A ruína ora emocional, ora física examina o amor e a perda, mas igualmente as memórias do passado.
”E, a seguir, um estrondo vindo de baixo. O som de um peso grande a cair no chão. O céu a rasgar-se devagar. Agora, uma palavra repetida. Não, não, não. Quando o atinge, há um enorme clarão branco.” (Pág. 22)
Uma economia da linguagem e um lirismo conciso fazem de Cynan Jones um escritor hábil nas descrições e lapidar na utilização da repetição associada a imagens ressonantes e emotivas. As lembranças da personagem surgem após uma ocorrência inesperada de uma forma lenta e parcial, uma espécie de despertar no horizonte da vida, com reflexo consciente na natureza envolvente e na determinação de sobreviver. As questões relacionadas com a distorção temporal e com o acelerar dos fenómenos directamente relacionados com os cinco sentidos são exemplarmente relacionados com a vontade e os instintos primários de sobrevivência.
O escritor galês Cynan Jones (n. 1975) utiliza um estilo enigmático e uma escrita poética (verificável na forma como o texto nos é apresentado nas páginas do livro e na separação entre os parágrafos curtos).
”A Baía” é um livro sobre as memórias, sobre a separação e sobre a necessidade de sobrevivência; uma meditação assombrosa em relação ao sofrimento e às angústias traumáticas relacionadas com a fragilidade humana.
A edição física do livro ”A Baía” pela editora Elsinore é perfeita.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 31, 2017
Read as slow as I could in an empty room in the fading light. A very serene and intense story.
September 17, 2019
Voor één keer blijkt de hype waar, dit boek is ongelooflijk goed. Ik heb het meteen herlezen, twee avonden op een rij, omdat die eerste leesbeurt zo’n mokerslag was. Zou die ervaring herhaald worden? Ja hoor, die was precies dezelfde. Ik herinner me een fietsvakantie in Noord-Holland een aantal jaar geleden. Ik keek uit over een wilde zee, het waaide 6 beaufort, en ik zag die torenhoge golven wild tegen de dijk aan beuken waarop ik zat. Ik voelde me zo nietig, zelfs angstig in het aanschijn van al dat natuurgeweld en besefte dat de zee een monster kan zijn. Krek hetzelfde voelde ik bij het lezen van Inham. Angstig, gekweld, claustrofobisch. Ik was die kayakker in gedachten mee aan het helpen zich tegen de storm te wapenen. Wat een knappe schrijfprestatie! Het is weinigen gegeven met zo weinig woorden zo’n waarlijk enge ervaring op te roepen.
May 2, 2020
Sometimes the smallest packages can deliver the largest jolt. As others have noted, this is an almost poetic novella in which a man in a kayak finds himself adrift after being struck by lightning. With no recall of his name or anything else beyond the urgent need for survival, he connects to his innermost essence. And his reasoning for survival: "If you disappear you will grow into a myth for them. You will exist only as absence. If you get back, you will exist as a legend." If anything, I was reminded of Jim Crace's Being Dead, in the spare but involving style.
October 20, 2018
It does not matter who are. You know what you are physically, and that you’re in a kayak in the middle of the ocean. It only matter what you are, right now.
A man is struck by lightning whilst kayaking, and is left partially paralyzed and only barely clinging to life, adrift on the ocean. Left to the mercy of the elements, and his own thoughts, Cove is about survival, when you literally have nothing left.
Cynan Jones is known for his “bare-bone” books. He strips away anything unnecessary, to leave only the core behind. Cove embodies that philosophy to the extreme, in both story-themes, as well as style. With only 99 pages, and nothing there that doesn’t absolutely need to be there, it’s a textbook example of minimalism in writing.
It’s technically well done, however, personally I felt like Jones may have stripped away a little too much from this novella. It gets its message across in the few words it uses, yet didn’t do much more for me than that.
The trick to minimalism is to strip away enough to leave only the essential, yet don’t strip off any more to lose personality. To me, the latter happened to Cove, despite its best efforts.
A man is struck by lightning whilst kayaking, and is left partially paralyzed and only barely clinging to life, adrift on the ocean. Left to the mercy of the elements, and his own thoughts, Cove is about survival, when you literally have nothing left.
Cynan Jones is known for his “bare-bone” books. He strips away anything unnecessary, to leave only the core behind. Cove embodies that philosophy to the extreme, in both story-themes, as well as style. With only 99 pages, and nothing there that doesn’t absolutely need to be there, it’s a textbook example of minimalism in writing.
It’s technically well done, however, personally I felt like Jones may have stripped away a little too much from this novella. It gets its message across in the few words it uses, yet didn’t do much more for me than that.
The trick to minimalism is to strip away enough to leave only the essential, yet don’t strip off any more to lose personality. To me, the latter happened to Cove, despite its best efforts.
April 15, 2018
Every book of his I read further solidifies Cynan Jones' place amongst my favorite authors.
There is not one wasted word within the nintey-some pages of this novelette. Sparce, frantic, and raw, Cove demonstrates Jones' skill at toying with tension, pulling the reader along in fits and bursts, much like the push and pull of the ocean waves against our progatonist's kayak.
There is not one wasted word within the nintey-some pages of this novelette. Sparce, frantic, and raw, Cove demonstrates Jones' skill at toying with tension, pulling the reader along in fits and bursts, much like the push and pull of the ocean waves against our progatonist's kayak.
November 19, 2018
A spare but haunting novella about a lone man who is struck by lightening while kayaking to cast his fathers ashes on the sea. 4 stars
October 31, 2016
This slender book, having the same dimensions as a collection of poetry, wants to be revisited, delved into and enjoyed like a collection of poetry. When I first picked it up, I idly read a page out of the middle, before I stopped myself, went to the beginning and read it in the conventional way. That’s something that I often do with poetry, less often with novels unsurprisingly enough. Likewise, I’ve read it through three times since having it. I have read some novels multiple times, but never Anna Karenina nor Nicolas Nickleby. It’s neat and compact.
Cove is built for close examination. It’s not at all faffy, self-indulgent, ostentatious, winking, or sentimental (so maybe not like every book of poetry, perhaps). The prose clicks along with unaffected purpose and it does have a relentless, driving narrative. It is a gripping read, one that rises to a powerful climax and it can, and maybe should be read in a single sitting. But for all that, it has the potential to be a far deeper novel, more challenging than Jones’s previous work. Symbolism and image run deep on every page. Reading it you sense that something ineffable is being reached for, grasped at and ultimately missed. It's as if you know there's a oneness to it if only you could reach out and take it: something to do with God and the sea and the voice of the father and the wall and the rhythm and the movement and the son and the waiting and the doll. It is the figure of a man pitted against a blind and powerful force, coming into being in the face of almost certain failure. But like all of Jones’s work, it's never utterly bleak. It is not a nihilistic view of the world. The story is charged with meaning, with spirit.
And yet, for all that, it's not some puzzle set for you by a paternalistic know-it-all author, it’s not well-done sum. There's no simple pay-off, where you follow to the end of a trail of meticulously positioned breadcrumbs. In short, it's the first novel I've read in a long, long time where I've really had to think about it. I've found myself thinking about it in the car, thinking, knowing there's something I need to understand and get right. I love that feeling!
Cove is built for close examination. It’s not at all faffy, self-indulgent, ostentatious, winking, or sentimental (so maybe not like every book of poetry, perhaps). The prose clicks along with unaffected purpose and it does have a relentless, driving narrative. It is a gripping read, one that rises to a powerful climax and it can, and maybe should be read in a single sitting. But for all that, it has the potential to be a far deeper novel, more challenging than Jones’s previous work. Symbolism and image run deep on every page. Reading it you sense that something ineffable is being reached for, grasped at and ultimately missed. It's as if you know there's a oneness to it if only you could reach out and take it: something to do with God and the sea and the voice of the father and the wall and the rhythm and the movement and the son and the waiting and the doll. It is the figure of a man pitted against a blind and powerful force, coming into being in the face of almost certain failure. But like all of Jones’s work, it's never utterly bleak. It is not a nihilistic view of the world. The story is charged with meaning, with spirit.
And yet, for all that, it's not some puzzle set for you by a paternalistic know-it-all author, it’s not well-done sum. There's no simple pay-off, where you follow to the end of a trail of meticulously positioned breadcrumbs. In short, it's the first novel I've read in a long, long time where I've really had to think about it. I've found myself thinking about it in the car, thinking, knowing there's something I need to understand and get right. I love that feeling!
February 13, 2018
Je moet vaker op zondagochtend je bed uit. Je moet voor nieuwe input naar Arnhem rijden, of Roeselare, of in dit geval Turnhout. Op zondagochtend doe je geweldige ontdekkingen.
Net voor kerst trad ik er samen met Annelies Verbeke en een aantal buitenlandse schrijvers op, waarvan ik één schrijver geheel niet kende, Cynan Jones. Bleek het juist deze man uit Wales te zijn die me met zijn voordracht het meest raakte.
In het interview dat aan zijn voordracht voorafging had hij het over eerder werk van hem, en het feit dat hij geen lijvige boeken kan schrijven. Hij houdt van het vergrootglas, van het inzoomen.
Wat hij over ‘Cove’ (Inham) vertelde, sprak me onmiddellijk aan. Hoe bouw je een heel verhaal op rond een naamloze man die in een kajak op zee door de bliksem getroffen wordt, en als hij bijkomt, zo goed als niks weet? Hij is gewond. Om hem heen hagelt het. Als de hagelbui over is, ontwaart hij af en toe land aan de horizon. In gedachten legt hij verbanden. Dat gaat moeizaam. De gedachten zijn rafelig, maar langzaam komt hij tot een vaag besef.
Mondjesmaat lezen, die Cynan Jones. Op mijn nachtkastje ligt ondertussen ‘The Dig’ klaar. In het Engels gekocht, maar ook in het Nederlands verschenen bij Koppernik — een uitgeverij die ik ook nog niet kende, maar meteen al goed en moedig vind.
‘Inham’ is uit het Engels vertaald door Jona Hoek.
Net voor kerst trad ik er samen met Annelies Verbeke en een aantal buitenlandse schrijvers op, waarvan ik één schrijver geheel niet kende, Cynan Jones. Bleek het juist deze man uit Wales te zijn die me met zijn voordracht het meest raakte.
In het interview dat aan zijn voordracht voorafging had hij het over eerder werk van hem, en het feit dat hij geen lijvige boeken kan schrijven. Hij houdt van het vergrootglas, van het inzoomen.
Wat hij over ‘Cove’ (Inham) vertelde, sprak me onmiddellijk aan. Hoe bouw je een heel verhaal op rond een naamloze man die in een kajak op zee door de bliksem getroffen wordt, en als hij bijkomt, zo goed als niks weet? Hij is gewond. Om hem heen hagelt het. Als de hagelbui over is, ontwaart hij af en toe land aan de horizon. In gedachten legt hij verbanden. Dat gaat moeizaam. De gedachten zijn rafelig, maar langzaam komt hij tot een vaag besef.
Mondjesmaat lezen, die Cynan Jones. Op mijn nachtkastje ligt ondertussen ‘The Dig’ klaar. In het Engels gekocht, maar ook in het Nederlands verschenen bij Koppernik — een uitgeverij die ik ook nog niet kende, maar meteen al goed en moedig vind.
‘Inham’ is uit het Engels vertaald door Jona Hoek.
February 2, 2018
I received this book through Goodreads First Reads.
I have not read this type of book before in terms of structure and the way the story was told. It felt like I was reading a poem, it was very lyrical but I didn't have an issue with trying to picture, in my mind, the scenes of the man trying to survive at sea after losing his memory. It was an interesting read and one I enjoyed.
I have not read this type of book before in terms of structure and the way the story was told. It felt like I was reading a poem, it was very lyrical but I didn't have an issue with trying to picture, in my mind, the scenes of the man trying to survive at sea after losing his memory. It was an interesting read and one I enjoyed.
August 16, 2024
Haunting.
April 1, 2020
4.5 stars.....not a single word wasted. Missing that half star because I don’t like speculation. Note:helpful to reread the beginning.
March 18, 2017
Hemingway en Mishima zijn nooit ver weg in dit intens relaas van de overlevingsstrijd van een man die tijdens een kajaktocht verrast wordt door een storm en door de bliksem wordt getroffen. Hij ontwaakt in onbekend water, midden op zee, ver van de 'inham' uit de titel en zwaargewond. In een minimale stijl evoceert Jones op een huiveringwekkend realistische manier de levensdrang van een man die met de moed der wanhoop zijn ratio gebruikt om terug aan land (waar zijn zwangere vrouw op hem wacht) te geraken. Zo dicht op de huid dat de angst, paniek en radeloosheid voelbaar zijn. Knap. 'The dig' van deze auteur schijnt ook heel goed te zijn.
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