Diving Belles

LONGLISTED FOR THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE 2012

Along Cornwall's ancient coast, from time to time, the flotsam and jetsam of the past can become caught in the cross-currents of the present and a certain kind of magic floats to the surface... Straying husbands lured into the sea can be fetched back, for a fee. Houses creak, fill with water and keep a fretful watch on their inhabitants. And, on a windy beach, a small boy and his grandmother keep despair at bay with an old white door. In these stories, hopes, regrets and memories are entangled with catfish, wreckers' lamps and baying hounds as Cornish folklore slips into everyday life.