About this item
Highlights
- In this collection, prize-winning Irish essayist Chris Arthur ranges over subjects as various as a girl's ear, a vulture's egg, the letters in a Scrabble game, a sprig of witch-hazel, and the chasms of complexity contained in an ordinary moment.
- Author(s): Chris Arthur
- 232 Pages
- Nature, Essays
Description
About the Book
The lyrical, imaginative essays in HIDDEN CARGOES examine the extraordinary nature of ordinary life as seen by one of very best essayists in the English language today.
Book Synopsis
In this collection, prize-winning Irish essayist Chris Arthur ranges over subjects as various as a girl's ear, a vulture's egg, the letters in a Scrabble game, a sprig of witch-hazel, and the chasms of complexity contained in an ordinary moment. Whether he's writing about owls, leaves, a street in his hometown, the symbiotic interrelationships in the stomach of a termite, a souvenir cigarette box from a ship sunk in World War II, or the coincidence of three hearts beating simultaneously together, what gives these unorthodox meditations their appeal is the way they tap into unexpected seams of meaning and mystery in our everyday terrain. HIDDEN CARGOES offers a virtuoso demonstration of the potential of the creative essay.
Review Quotes
One of the ten best books of 2022, according to the California Review of Books.
"If anyone can lure out of hiding the mysterious secrets of the things of this world, and turn the familiar unfamiliar, the everyday magical, it's Chris Arthur. One of our greatest living essayists, he brings a rare combination of tenderness, power, care and, at times, ghoulish humor to the page."
Philip Lopate, author of Against Joie de Vivre and Portrait of My Body
"The essays here compel a re-ordering of attitudes to the very world we live in."
Eoghan Smith for Books Ireland
Robert Atwan has described Arthur as "among the very best essayists in the English language today."