Half a Creature from the Sea : A Life in Stories

An anthology of dark, powerful and moving short stories from master storyteller David Almond, inspired by his childhood in the north-east of England. David Almond says of this unique collection, ‘Stories on the page are so beautifully neat. All that lovely black print; those lovely straight lines and paragraphs and pages.

But stories are living things, creatures that move and grow in the imaginations of writer and reader. They must be solid and touchable, like the land, and must have fluid half-known depths, like the sea. These stories take place in a real world – but in fiction, real worlds merge with dreamed worlds.

Real people walk with ghosts and figments. Earthly truth goes hand-in-hand with watery lies.’ Stories include: ‘The Missing Link’, ‘Joe Quinn’s Poltergeist’, ‘Harry Miller’s Run’, ‘Slog’s Dad’, ‘Klaus Vogel and the Bad Lads’, ‘May Malone’, ‘Half a Creature from the Sea’ and ‘When God Came to Cathleen’s Garden’.