Clint and Dustin are coconuts, 10L have turned into three-toed sloths, Gron is becoming Zero Mostel, the lower sixth is an airliner of people about to fall out of the sky, and you, you've turned into a three-eyed Martian who speaks a nounless language and has forgotted to pay the child minder. But what's all this got to do with sixteenth century Ermland? It's an ordinary week in post-industrial south Wales, and alienated desperation is as much fun as it's ever been. Sidereal Time, starting with the experiences of Sarah, a school teacher feeling the first intimations of middle age, explores the cussed paradox of the way life can be predictable and yet not follow any script you've prepared.
Click on the book cover to read an extract from Sidereal Time
Griffri
'...In the dream I'm travelling very fast and without effort high over the ground as if I'm a bird flying. There's the trackless mass of trees and strips of mountain ridges and the thread of river like sour milk. The sky is dark blue and red like bruises. I swoop down and then up to miss smashing into the crowns of the trees and I see the bruised air and the black horizon. I come to a figure standing on the heather. He stands with his arms flung out, the fingers spread, like branches. I come close to his face, to his untidy red moustache and his head split by an appalling wound.' On two nights separated by a gap of a dozen years, Griffri ap Berddig, a poet at the court of a minor Welsh prince of the twelfth century, tells his life story to a Cistercian monk. Part boast and part confession, his words turn into a compelling narrative which develops through an accumulation of obsessive images towards self-revelation. A complex mixture of historical detail and invention, Griffri is a serious and entertaining novel examining the limits of our knowledge of the world and ourselves.
Click on the book cover to read an extract from Griffri
Or here to read a review of Griffri
Shifts
Against the background of a declining steel town, Shifts charts the lives of four closely bound characters, Jack, Keith, Rob and Judith in a story of grief, love, work and betrayal. When the plant closes all four are forced to take control of their lives. The men look to their work and to the past for explanation, while Judith seeks an answer in herself and those around her. The result is an ever more intense entanglement of their lives as they search for a new way to live. Shifts was Christopher Meredith's impressive fiction debut. The new edition includes a thoughtful essay on the book by Richard Poole.
These novels are all available from Seren, 1st & 2nd Floors, 38-40 Nolton Street, Bridgend CF31 3BN, tel 01656 663018 or email
Links
Home
Events and list of publications
Poems
Sidereal Time
An extract from the novel Sidereal Time
Griffri
An extract from the novel Griffri
Nadolig Bob Dydd
An illustrated children's book in Welsh
FAQS
Some questions that have cropped up frequently in email or the Guestbook
Guestbook