The Shell Collector by Anthony Doerr (of ‘All the Light We Cannot See’ fame)
Beautiful writing and intricate descriptions are ever the hallmark of Doerr’s writing, and this collection of short stories is no different.
In the title story ‘The Shell Collector’ Doerr again explores the theme of blindness (actually, this book came before ‘All the Light We Cannot See’ and is the author’s first book) in the story of a blind shell collector who inadvertently finds himself designated a miracle healer, thanks to a cone shell whose venom has heretofore unknown healing properties.
Among the characters who populate the stories are a hunter’s wife who can commune with dead animals, a Liberian refugee in Oregon, and an American museum employee who marries a Tanzanian woman and brings her home to Ohio only to discover how they are both inextricably linked to the landscapes of their homelands. Many of the stories are slow and melancholic, sometimes surreal, but other stories like ‘July Fourth’, about the competition between two groups of sportfishermen, from an American and a British anglers’ club respectively, to bag the biggest fish in Europe, inject a measure of levity into the collection.
The natural world and the close kinship between people and their surroundings are themes that run through the collection.
In all, an enjoyable read.