Limestone

by Fiona Farrell

A fabulous multi-levelled novel, shortlisted for the Montana NZ Book Awards.

Clare Lacey is on a quest. In Ireland to attend an art history conference, she sets out to find her father who walked out one day to buy a packet of cigarettes when she was a child, and disappeared. She is urged on her way by chance encounters: with a woman in a high tower, a blind man at a crossroads, a singer whose song she does not understand . . . Clues lie all around on a labyrinth of walls - but the final clue lies deep within.

With Irish roots and a nod to the Irish classic, The Year of the Hiker by John B. Keane, this is a contemporary novel about inheritance, belief, art, love . . . and limestone.

Genres: Fiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Fiona Farrell, ONZM (born 1947) is a New Zealand poet, fiction writer and playwright.

Reviews

[Bob George · Rating 1 out of 5]

Struggled with this; managed to get about 4 to 5 chapters into it; reached the blind man at the Crossroads; the shifting central characters; the over-laboured meditations; humourless; undoubtably a graphic depiction of New Zealand life; search for identity through the past; all that stuff. I quite liked the science at the start; the creatures that are reborn 3 times before dying and being crushed to become Limestone; but just too many words for too little ideas; this review could be like that so I'll stop

[Narrative Muse]

Read this if: You enjoy contemporary literature and appreciate beautiful prose.

Limestone is a novel about a woman, Clare, who travels to Ireland to find the father who walked out on her when she was a child. While there, she discovers a new lens through which to explore her family, her past, and herself. If you’re in the mood for a story sparse on action but big on evocative language and the inner lives of others, this is for you.

[Moya Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of New Zealand's best writers. Fiona Farrell always makes one feel that link to the land of one's birth and one's ancestry. "Limestone" is the significant word. It is also a search for a lost father. Relevant to a child's relationship to the father who is always 'lost'.

[Mocha VonBee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Long passages of endless description, most of which is tangental to an insubstantial story line.

[Faye Maclennan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice to read a book written by a Kiwi and the reference to many locations in the South Island that I can relate to.

[Vivienne · Rating 1 out of 5]

Abandoned at 4%, so pretentious!

[Maureen Jansen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fine book. I read it hastily, however, and skipped the first chapter. It consisted of a meditation on the beauty and symbolic nature of limestone. Farrell's character came from "limestone country" - Oamaru, New Zealand.

After that, I became increasingly caught up in the character's quest to find her father in Ireland.

It's not the great NZ novel but she's a really good writer. I liked her observations of tourism in Ireland and Europe. Some of it reminded me of the description of Charles Dickens territory in Lloyd Jones' "Mister Pip". I guess the two books have the same theme of a colonial looking for her cultural origins in the Old World.

Farrell's plot doesn't have Jones' "hook" but I was engrossed enough to finish the book in the car while my husband was driving and to go back to the first chapter and actually read it.

[Trish Saunders · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Limestone' contains some beautiful and profound writing. It is not a page turner full of snappy dialogue and fast action. It is a story of a central character's search for her father, with digressions and wandering observations so astute and perfectly written, that I often stopped to savour and reread them, story on hold for a moment.
When Fiona Farrell nails something, she nails it.

[Bachyboy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautifully written yet strangely unsatisfying. Claire lacy is on a quest to find the father who walked out of their family when she was a girl. Woven throughout the book are references to limestone which is very clever. I particularly enjoyed the descriptions of her childhood.

[Clare Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two and a half for the characters. Strangely there was something "off" about this book, not sure what. I found the constant stone references somewhat redundant, almost as if they were only to justify the title. The whole thing was slightly over done