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