Jonathan Buckley is clearly a versatile writer – a writer and editorial director at Rough Guides, a BBC National Short Story award winner (following immediately after Lionel Shriver) and a writer of relatively unknown novels which seem commonly to lead to those who review them to comment that they are surprised that the author is not better known (as I did when I read his quietly thoughtful and beautifully crafted 10th novel “The Great Concert of the Night” – a French arthouse cinema infused tale of remembering and restoration).

I then read his 12th novel “Tell” a book around making stories of other people’s lives – the winner of the second (2022) edition of The Novel Prize, a biennial award for a book-length work of literary fiction written in English run by Fitzcarraldo (UK), Giramondo (Australia) and New Directions (in US) who all published the book – my reading of it prompted by its shortlisting for the 2024 Goldsmith Prize for innovative fiction which “breaks the mould” despite a blurb by Ian Sansom (repeated on this book) which talks, accurately, of Buckley as an overlooked author “in the great European tradition ….. working in odd and antique modes”

This is his 13th novel – and due to be published by Fitzcarraldo later in 2025.

The ostensible set up is that the first party narrator – Teresa (and as an aside I was not entirely convinced by this male author writing a female first party narrator and it took me some time to work out the narrator was female), a driven in-house corporate lawyer for a music publisher (having previously worked for a book publisher) – daughter of two mathematicians her driven and distant mother particularly brilliant – has returned to a small town on the Greek coast which she discovered nine years ago after a search for the perfect town (“a place that was quiet, but not somnolent” and with a small hotel she could stay and a small square where she could spend the day observing and writing).

Nine years ago, her visit was to grieve and process her thoughts following the death of her mother and this visit follows the death of her father – and in many ways she tries to retrace many of the relationships she developed and the actions that she took and the narrative switches frequently and non-linearly between the two visits often making use of her written notes from her first visit to refresh her memories. In some cases, the narrative also switches across memorable and portentously described days or trips spent with her parents or ex-husband. It is easy however to follow where we are at any time.

In particular she interacts with Niko (a diving instructor and lover on the first visit, but married on the second), Xanthe (a waitress turned café proprietor who acts more as an observer and commentor on the town) and Petros (originally from the UK but long time naturalised – a car mechanic who nine years ago has a sideline in bizarre animal philosophy and in the second visit in rubbish poetry) – and she also remembers a detailed story told to her by another temporary UK visitor to the Island - John.

I have to say I had heavy vibes of two Goldsmith stalwarts – twice shortlisted and author of the 2024 Goldsmith Prize lecture Deborah Levy (with the Mediterranean setting and even an early jellyfish appearance) and three times previously shortlisted and 2024 winner Rachel Cusk (with Teresa spending so long listening to John’s story). But the novel is well short of either Levy’s sense of mood and imagery and of Cusk’s clever use of annihilated perspective.

And to be honest I found much of the novel very old fashioned with writing shading on the rather pretentious although I think deliberately affected. So for example we are told “I too was suboptimally passionate, in the final analysis. This was never said explicitly, but the hints were unambiguous. I was a few degrees warmer than my mother–that was the implication. Omne animal post coitum triste est–but even more so, for Tom, as time passed.” and later of her first tryst with Niko “There can be no description of what occurred. Representation of the gymnastics would be ridiculous; of the sensations, impossible. Some adjectives could be deployed: ‘wonderful’ would be one. My language fails.”

There are also far too many dreams – as implausibly detailed (even if the narrator writes her dreams in her ever-present notebook) as only dreams in novels ever are – and as uninteresting as other people’s dreams always are.

And later when it suddenly becomes obvious how John and Petros’s stories intersect (although much less obvious how this really helps the novel) I must admit to mentally preparing my take down review.

But then a last element of the novel left me a little more ambiguous. Talking to what seems to be her agent or editor who is reviewing the notes she made (much of which seems to be what we are reading) he discussed many of the elements that most frustrated me in the novel and suggests some modifications (including the “excavation … of the dream stuff …….. dreams are like the contents of a kitchen bin: the rubbish might tell us about the person who created it but not a great deal, and certainly not anything crucial”) – and we are back to the meta-layers of storytelling that seem to characterise Buckley’s work and my criticisms were a little stilled.

But her editor also discussed a book of his own – Category One – about a professional cyclist who dopes but not to win the Dauphiné (his local race and dream when an amateur) but to become a top level domestique known for this (drug-enhanced) ability to suffer.

And to be honest – as a big cycling fan – for all Buckley’s talent I wish I had read that instead.

In "One Boat," Jonathan Buckley explores the roles we play as we process grief and how we concoct narratives around that grief. How do we choose which versions of our lives to offer up to others so that we accommodate for the pain and sadness that we endure? Through the character of Teresa, we see a woman who struggles to piece together her past life as a daughter, wife, writer, lover, and tourist. As she once again returns to a Greek island, she reconciles her past memories of the island with the way she wants to write these experiences.

Buckley's "One Boat" makes us question how we use our past pain to experience and react to current events. Do we continue to live in that pain or do we try to live in the present? Is it even possible to live in the present when you're suffering from so much grief? Obviously, a woman who can travel to Greece on a holiday has an advantage that others would not have, but grief does not care about such advantages. We all lose loved ones. We all will get older and replay moments in the past.

I can see how this elliptical novel may not be for everyone, but I found it engrossing and thought provoking. It made me think about how I have processed losing three family members, and how those losses have impacted how I interacted with the world. A definite recommendation.

This is the second of the author's books I've read. It elicits similar feelings in me - I really want to read it and complete it while not enjoying the experience. It's like encountering someone very odd-looking in a bad way, and struggling to take your eyes off them.

The book is told from the perspective of a woman in her late 40s of early 50s, in the first person. The narrator travels to Greece, having been there once before, 9 years earlier. The story is multilayered - the narrator is an author (in the book's universe) trying to tell a story that is made up of a mixture of events that occurred to her in various periods of time, centering around a specific event 9 years prior to the story's main plot line. While we discover what the main event, as it were, is, we also learn more about the woman and her own personal history. It's not always clear what timeline is being discussed at that particular moment, and it's not always clear whether the story is "real" or imagined, for the purposes of the book the narrator is preparing to write.

Overall, I really wanted to read it and the urge to read it persisted during the experience. However, I found the characters flatish, the story uninspired, and the structure more confusing than necessary.

Overall, I'd suggest to skip, unless you're a diehard fan of the author, or want to sound sophisticated among a paticular set of acquaintances.

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an early copy of this book in return for an honest review.

I'd been circling Jonathan Buckley's writing for some time (as you do), before reading his last book, Tell, which I didn't really get on with. I found One Boat rather more engaging and impressive. Like all good books, it's in part a subtle and insightful discussion of the process of writing itself, but also a powerful exploration of issues like death, love, and belonging. Its plot centres on the return of Teresa, its narrator, to a small Greek coastal town, nine years after her previous visit, which followed her mother's death. This second visit follows the death of her father. Events from both visits are described and characters recur in a way that blurs without confusing the reader (not as simple as it sounds) and while little is resolved in the narrative, there's nothing at all dissatisfying in that. Although a short novel, it is wide-ranging and thought-provoking - "A long life and a short life are the same, because the present is the only life we have - the same for everyone' (a key theme of the book). At other times it is subtly comic, as in Teresa's refusal to include a description of sex: "Some adjectives could be deployed: 'wonderful' would be one. My language fails' (another theme). There's also lots of imagery of theatre and role-playing, as characters try, and fail, to understand each other and their lives. It ends with an invocation to move forward, which somehow goes to the hear of the book's intention and its power. Another great book published by Fitzcarraldo.

Teresa has lost her father and John is trying to get over the death of his nephew. Both are in turmoil and both are on a beautiful Greek island doing the best they can to recover and move on.

This is a wonderful read. It is beautifully written and I loved reading about how the characters reveal their inner most secrets and how they use each other to rebuild and move on from tragedy and sadness.

Highly recommended