Cirrus@Austlit

'“Dan dropped dead on the sand and that was that.” In the first sentence of the first story in this very enjoyable new collection, Robert Drewe establishes the sea as a place of both death and sly comedy. There is a hoary literary convention of the sea as metaphor; you might even say it has been overfished for allegory. Yet with his narrative inventiveness, and the deft combination of a light touch and dark sensibility, Drewe offers a fresh perspective on oceanic themes – freedom, cleansing and renewal along with their obverse of entrapment, muck and danger. Playful undercurrents and perilous rips of eroticism run through these tales. The sea is a moody and sensuous beast.' (Introduction)