Calabash

By Christopher Fowler

2000

First Published

3.82

Average Rating

352

Number of Pages

10H45M

Audio Length

Kay Goodwin is a 16-year-old boy with a smart mouth and too much imagination. Marooned in the run-down seaside resort of Cole Bay, his life is a horrible comedy of errors that has trapped him in the country's most dismal place at the worst possible time - the early '70s. He dreams of escaping the crumbling pier and the grumbling pensioners, of finding a place where he is appreciated, but it's the one thing he can't do. Until he discovers a faraway land with characters who are impossibly exotic, but strangely familiar. In the kingdom of Calabash he can have everything he's ever wanted from life. There's only one small problem. Calabash doesn't actually exist. In an England that's still hungover from the 60s, Kay finds it all too easy to retreat from reality. Everyone in Cole Bay expects him to conform, but Kay is prepared to risk everything to find out what makes him different, what his life really holds, and what will happen if he believes in the impossible.

Avg Rating

3.82

Number of Ratings

108

5 STARS

29%

4 STARS

33%

3 STARS

31%

2 STARS

1 STARS

goodreads

Author

Christopher Fowler

Author · 57 books

Librarian note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name Christopher Fowler was an English novelist living in London. His books contain elements of black comedy, anxiety and social satire. As well as novels, he wrote short stories, scripts, press articles and reviews. He lived in King's Cross, on the Battlebridge Basin, and chose London as the backdrop of many of his stories because any one of the events in its two-thousand-year history can provide inspiration. In 1998 he was the recipient of the BFS Best Short Story of the Year, for 'Wageslaves'. Then, in 2004, The Water Room was nominated for the CWA People's Choice Award, Full Dark House won the BFS August Derleth Novel of The Year Award 2004 and 'American Waitress' won the BFS Best Short Story of the Year 2004. The novella 'Breathe' won BFS Best Novella 2005.