Deck, The
Farrell, Fiona
What is the point of inventing stories when reality eclipses imagination?
A little way off in the future, during a time of plague and profound social collapse, a group of friends escapes to a house in the country where they entertain themselves by playing music, eating, drinking and telling stories about their lives. There are tales of thieves and pirates, deaths and a surprise birth, a freak wave and many other stories of misadventure resulting in unexpected felicity.
The Deck borrows the motifs of Giovanni Boccaccio's 14th-century masterpiece, The Decameron, in which another small group gathered to avoid contagion and passed the time telling stories. But what is the role of fiction, this novel asks, as civilisation falters? [Taken from book cover, Vintage Books]
Comments from BDS Reviewers
"Beautiful writing - exquisite hard-hitting descriptions."
"Extremely inventive, but mirroring 'The Decameron' in a modern context."
"I think it would suit a book group wanting more from a book than an entertaining light read."
"A great read while by no means a comfortable one."
"I really enjoyed reading this book. It was easy to read yet packed full of information, beautiful descriptions and elegant phrases."
"I really felt invested in the lives of the characters."
"The summary of the Covid years is vivid in all our memories but here it is recorded in print reminding us of how awful it was."
"A book that needs time for reflection."
"Every character shines out, and the prosaic relation of day-to-day life striped back by the need to survive is all too real."
300
2023