Dimensions
134 x 200 x 13mm
A contemporary fable, this book shows that when life seems dull and cruel it is the power of the natural world, and our ability to imagine it, that can bring the wonder back into living.
In the village of Stellanuova in southern Italy in the 1700s, a Franciscan monk, Fra Ionio, becomes known as the Patron Saint of Eels when he brings a distraught fisherman's yearly catch of eels back from the dead in the village market. When the inhabitants of Stellanuova emigrate to Australia in the post World War II migrations of the 1940s, 50s and 60s, the immortal saint is left looking down on an abandoned town. To fulfill his calling, he decides in heaven to migrate with his countrymen and now looks down on the southern Australian state of Victoria, where he intercedes in matters relating to eels.
In the southern Victorian town of Mangowak, Noel Lea lives with the melancholy inheritance of a place undergoing the gentrifications of contemporary Australia. Along with his oldest friend Nanette Burns he longs for a time past when life was less complex and unexpected magic seemed to permeate the ocean town and its people. When a deluge of spring rains floods a nearby swamp and hundreds of eels get trapped in the grassy ditches around his family home, Noel and Nanette encounter the vibrant Fra Ionio and get more magic than they bargained for.
