Sea Fret

by Dilys Rose

Two travelling musicians attempt to come to terms with a nightmare scenario at home; restless teenagers run riot during lockdown, with drastic consequences; Albert Einstein’s reputation grows, as does his absence as a father; a cantankerous ninety-nine year old contributes to the chaos of a night ward....
Dilys Rose has been compared to Katherine Mansfield. An accomplished novelist and short-story writer, Rose’s long-celebrated mastery of the form allows her to draw through lines of loss and longing, uncertainty and hope. She conjures the essence of a situation with insight, economy and dark wit, and vividly presents an uncompromising view of the world where everyone is searching but few find what they hope for. Each story vividly creates the inner world of a compelling, yet disparate cast of characters, and these brief glimpses into the lives of others leave a lasting afterglow.

207 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2022

About the author

Dilys Rose is a Scottish fiction writer and poet. Born in 1954 in Glasgow, Rose studied at Edinburgh University, where she has been teaching Creative Writing since 2001. She is currently Director of the MSc in Creative Writing by Online Learning.

Rose has won many awards, including the Canongate Prize, the Macallan/Scotland on Sunday Short Story Competition, and a Robert Louis Stevenson Memorial Award; she has also been awarded a Society of Authors travel bursary and a UNESCO City of Literature exchange fellowship. Her poem Sailmaker's Palm won the 2006 McCash Poetry Prize, and her poetry collection Bodywork was shortlisted for the Sundial Scottish Arts Council Book Award. Rose's novel Red Tides won the 1993 Scottish Arts Council Book Award, as well as being shortlisted for the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award and the McVitie's Prize for Scottish Writer of the Year.

Her third novel Unspeakable was published by Freight Books in 2017.

Reviews

[Mirrin Hutchison · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of short stories from the accomplished Dilys Rose is gritty; witty; and instils a comforting sense of hope, hilarity and pity. Rose takes her talent for the short story form to new levels in her collection here of diverse characters whose lives interweave with events that you will recognise from your own reality such as the lockdowns. She does this with a vivid accuracy and a gorgeous sense of familiar wonder, to the point where you’ll be rereading each story to find a new one within it because you don’t want it to end.

A bold and brilliant collection that encompasses a love for new, vulnerable and audacious characters and the murky unknown of the now that we are living in. Sea Fret should be welcomed in like the fresh ocean mist it is named after for once you are immersed in it, you will never want to come out of it.