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Liminal
Aled is used to his dad Geraint waxing lyrical about some saint's cliff top lookout; some Greek temple or another hosting a thousand sacred prostitutes; some village near Corinth. Geraint is the county archaeologist, after all. So when travel agent Aled takes a trip to that same Peloponnesian village, his father is surprised. When Aled fails to return on the eve of his marriage, Geraint becomes alarmed and sets out on his trail. This quest, which is also a pilgrimage, will change all those involved.
194 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 6, 2012
“You’d be walking down the street, and on your right you’d see an archway that you’d somehow never noticed before, and you’d turn through it, without thinking… and there would be no way back… and nothing would ever be the same again.”
That is Geraint speaking, the central character in Welsh author Chris Keil’s second novel, Liminal. Geraint, with his ex-wife and son’s fiancée, have gone to Greece to hunt for Aled who has gone missing there. In Greece they have met Jessica, an American teacher who met Aled and spent two weeks with him before he left a note explaining he had to go. As they wander the sun-crested hills and beaches near Corinth seeking their loved on Geraint considers history – he is also seeking the place St Brygga settled, for she too left from the same Welsh village as them to come to this place, thousands of years before – and he considers the idea of liminality – that Aled is undergoing some transformation, a rite of passage in the Greek islands.
Structured around this central disappearance, Keil’s novel during its middle long section comes to resemble a thriller, and has the pace of one – the rushing across Athens to a police station where a confused boy has been arrested and whom they think might be Aled, to the tracing of ancient pathways through temples and remote places, to the bustle of the city – there is a strong energy to Keil’s writing, a drive to know what it is that has caused Aled’s disappearance. The mystery is augmented by Geraint’s friend at home emailing him the latest developments in her novel where a character, also called Geraint, is lost in a foreign land and being hunted by mysterious agents. We suspect that maybe fiction and fact might collide, that the liminal threshold will shatter between two worlds. It is credit to Keil that his novel is not overwhelmed by all these different threads. However, like all books with such a mystery at its central core – once we have worked out what is going on all energy is taken away from the work, and the last few pages work out the rest of the novels mysteries the deflation has negated some of the power. This is not a major criticism, though, but merely a minor one, and one inherent in all thrillers.
It is obvious from reading that Keil knows Greece very well, just as he knows his part of Wales, and the two worlds are created with graceful ease through a few simple brushstrokes. He also has the ability to create successful secondary characters – Nick the Greek police officer, the Grey Goose – characters we know and recognise.
Liminal is a quick entertaining read that shows true ability and genuine compassion and marks Chris Keil out as someone to watch; he is a writer engaged with deeper philosophical questions and with ones place in the world. These attributes should serve him well. I look forward to his next novel.
That is Geraint speaking, the central character in Welsh author Chris Keil’s second novel, Liminal. Geraint, with his ex-wife and son’s fiancée, have gone to Greece to hunt for Aled who has gone missing there. In Greece they have met Jessica, an American teacher who met Aled and spent two weeks with him before he left a note explaining he had to go. As they wander the sun-crested hills and beaches near Corinth seeking their loved on Geraint considers history – he is also seeking the place St Brygga settled, for she too left from the same Welsh village as them to come to this place, thousands of years before – and he considers the idea of liminality – that Aled is undergoing some transformation, a rite of passage in the Greek islands.
Structured around this central disappearance, Keil’s novel during its middle long section comes to resemble a thriller, and has the pace of one – the rushing across Athens to a police station where a confused boy has been arrested and whom they think might be Aled, to the tracing of ancient pathways through temples and remote places, to the bustle of the city – there is a strong energy to Keil’s writing, a drive to know what it is that has caused Aled’s disappearance. The mystery is augmented by Geraint’s friend at home emailing him the latest developments in her novel where a character, also called Geraint, is lost in a foreign land and being hunted by mysterious agents. We suspect that maybe fiction and fact might collide, that the liminal threshold will shatter between two worlds. It is credit to Keil that his novel is not overwhelmed by all these different threads. However, like all books with such a mystery at its central core – once we have worked out what is going on all energy is taken away from the work, and the last few pages work out the rest of the novels mysteries the deflation has negated some of the power. This is not a major criticism, though, but merely a minor one, and one inherent in all thrillers.
It is obvious from reading that Keil knows Greece very well, just as he knows his part of Wales, and the two worlds are created with graceful ease through a few simple brushstrokes. He also has the ability to create successful secondary characters – Nick the Greek police officer, the Grey Goose – characters we know and recognise.
Liminal is a quick entertaining read that shows true ability and genuine compassion and marks Chris Keil out as someone to watch; he is a writer engaged with deeper philosophical questions and with ones place in the world. These attributes should serve him well. I look forward to his next novel.
August 20, 2009
poetic, mysterious yet utterly familiar
September 23, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews