Book Review: Unaccountable Hours: Three Novellas by Stephen Scourfield - Page 3

"The crushing silence. The pressure of the huge desert sky and its massive volumes of oxygen cruses into his inner ear and makes the blood ziss inside his head.. He can feel the redness of it on the back of his retina, just as the rougey late anfternoon washes all around him. the glowing light sprays his heart, which is already raw and exposed from the hours voyaging back through his childhood, to his father." (291)

Although each of the novellas in Unaccounted Hours stands on its own as a complete story where the happening is a turning point in each of the protagonist's lives, it is possible to read these as a complete single work. The thematic links that encompass setting, progression and arc align the stories in a way that collectively, the overall impact is even greater than that of the individual stories. Above all, this is a collection that celebrates stillness and reflection, man's relationship with his environment, and the simultaneous beauty and pathos in each moment. 

Article Author: Maggie Ball

Magdalena Ball runs The Compulsive Reader. She is the author of the novels Black Cow and Sleep Before Evening, the poetry books Repulsion Thrust and Quark Soup, a nonfiction book The Art of Assessment, and, in collaboration with Carolyn Howard-Johnson, …

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