A Provincial Death

by Eoghan Smith

Lyrical and blackly comic, A Provincial Death is a startlingly original meditation on solitude and perseverance, the consolations of art and philosophy, and the capacity of human beings to endure catastrophe.

It is a hot, summer morning and Smyth, a struggling writer and academic, wakes to discover he is stranded alone on a rock in the Irish Sea. As he clings on in hope of salvation, he is assailed by broken memories and the failures of his past. Fragmented images of the previous day come to him: a mysterious research institute, a dead forest, a rickety boat captained by a gruff old fisherman, an eccentric academic named McGovern who believed that the Moon was about to crash into the Earth, destroying everything. Confused, weary and sore, and with the tide rising inexorably and strange sea creatures circling, Smyth tries to make sense of an arbitrary world in a desperate bid for survival.

154 pages, Paperback

Published February 25, 2022

Reviews

[Mike sherr · Rating 3 out of 5]

Smyth, the main character, was pretty well written. I felt bad for him in the beginning as he was just some guy stuck on a rock who couldn’t remember anything. As the story went on though we learned that he’s a bit self centered and doesn’t really care about anyone. He doesn’t really care about McGovern, Willy Lamport, and he doesn’t say a word about the sheep being attacked by the dog(which may seem trivial but compared to every other comment he makes about the surrounding animals I was a bit surprised). By the end I didn’t feel bad for him and was just more confused as to why he was out there in the first place.

It was overall a pretty good read. I especially enjoyed the snarky comments from the narrator about Smyth. The deeper message of the inevitability, and surprise, of death was easy to spot from the beginning, but that didn’t make the book any less enjoyable.

[Sam Hicks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Double wowzers. Exhilarating, searching, and borderline psychedelic. With laughs.