(This is part of a running review of Lost Estates by Mark Valentine (Swan River Press 2024)
There is something about sand. It gets between your toes, certainly, but it also gets into your imagination. It informs Algernon Blackwood's Egyptian novella 'Sand', Ramsey Campbell's Lovecraftian 'The Voice of the Beach', Stephen King's weird sci-fi 'Beachworld', and every other short story by J.G. Ballard. The granulated rock gets everywhere.
Mark Valentine's take on the significance of sand is somewhat gentler than those examples, but nonetheless intriguing. An eccentric scholar - is there any other kind in a story? - invites three people to visit his seashore mansion. Each of the guests has a particular expertise that relates to the strangely patterned sands of that particular coastline. One is a veteran guide to the treacherous shore, the second practices divination by sand, the third makes sandglasses but also has a strange paranormal gift. Between them they explore the possible significance of the ephemeral patterns, and almost come a metaphysical cropper in the process.
This is a seaside tale that successfully evokes British beaches at their more mysterious and even menacing. The next time I am on the coast, I will seek out the shifting, rippling patterns. But cautiously.
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