Review by Doryn Herbst of "The Headland" by Abi Curtis

This is a speculative novel running along two timelines: the aftermath of the Great Storm in southern England, 1987, and events that unfold several decades later.

Delores, a painter, has been unable to produce anything for over a year. She decides to move permanently to her summer studio in the Headland, a coastal community of free-spirited artists, fishermen and tourists but overshadowed by the nearby nuclear power station. 

The morning after extreme weather ripped across the South, Delores walks along the shingled beach near where she lives to assess damage and to check up on her friends.

She stumbles across a piece of driftwood, utterly beautiful, smoothed by water and smelling of sea salt. Preparing to take her find home for the garden, Delores sees something strange sheltered inside a crevice resembling a mouth in the wood. The something is plant-like, animal-like, energy-like, a ball of pulsating colour, and alive. Delores feels a connection to the creature but wonders whether it has emerged as a result of the storm, radioactive emissions or a mixture of both.

The driftwood is installed on her living-room table. Delores subsequently develops an emotional relationship to the being inside, calling it Violet. Her new companion becomes a source of power which fuels inspiration and a phase of prolific creativity follows.

Approaching forty, Morgan is at the Headland, the place of his childhood summers, to tie up legal formalities and attend his mother Delores’s funeral. Her solicitor gives him a box of documents and a letter from her explaining its contents and their importance.

Morgan’s girlfriend is pregnant but he doesn’t feel ready for this next phase of his life. He does not know who his father is and hopes the box will contain information about this stranger. Instead, Morgan uncovers other secrets within the pages of a journal his mother kept following the Great Storm.

At the core of this captivating story is the experience of loss and of being lost, the devastating consequences of grief and the process of healing. The narrative also explores the yearning to belong and the need to understand the past in order to encompass the present. Questions about fundamental beliefs challenge lineal notions of time and space and suggest the relationship between the two may not be what we imagine.

About the reviewer
Doryn Herbst, a former water industry scientist working in Wales, now lives in Germany. Her writing considers the natural world and themes which address social issues. Poetry in print and online includes work in: Osmosis, The Storms, The Wild Word, anthology – It’s not SYMPTOMATIC It’s Systematic. She is a reviewer at Consilience.

You can read more about The Headland by Abi Curtis on Creative Writing at Leicester here.