Review
A House by the River is the second novel from Sid Smith, the winner of the 2001 Whitbread First Novel Award. Like Something like a House, this new novel is set in China, a country never visited by the author. It tells the story of missionaries John and Grace Gerrard, who are sent to a primitive fishing settlement on the banks of a mighty river where boats are more precious than any dwelling and loneliness poisons the heart. The conflict between East and West is portrayed as a clash between the ancient Chinese Gods served by shaman Jivu Lanu and the river people and the Christian God served by the Gerrards. Smith mixes thrilling action and absorbing ideas as Grace provokes a murderous conspiracy and John is claimed by China's ancient Gods - events that are nearly fatal for both of them.
Product Description
At last, from the crest of a little cliff, we gazed with emotion on the rushing waters of the great river. How touching it was to see again our childhood friend, and to think that the very waters we now gaze upon will, after who knows how many weeks, and after how many strange sights and unknown scenes, pass our childhood homes. Sid Smiths second novel is set in the early 1900s, in a place as inaccessible, mysterious and beguiling as the setting of Something Like A House. In A House By The River, two western missionaries visit a lonely community by the river. The wife, Grace, keeps a diary, and through this the reader begins to find out about Chinese ideograms and the foundations of Christianitysomething so world-shattering that a prominent Chinese official wants it to remain suppressed. Sid Smith spent the first seven years of his working life in labouring jobsincluding woodsman, hod-carrier, railway labourer, gravedigger, stagehand and self-employed gardener. Smith has worked extensively for newspapers and magazines and is now a freelance sub-editor on national newspapers. His first novel, Something Like A House, won the 2001 Whitbread First Novel Award.
