"Spanning centuries, and centred on the elemental pull of a sacred Mexican rock, this thought-provoking novel is enriched by its alluring stories-within-stories structure."
Poetic and reflective, Anna Hope’s The White Rock explores four stories spanning three hundred years, each of them set around the White Rock, a sacred site off the Pacific coast of Mexico.
Circles of experiences and history emanate from the rock through time, and novel’s clever circular structure emulates this — chapters focussing on each of the four timeframes pivot around a chapter called The White Rock, as the characters’ lives pivot around the real rock. As a whole, the stories are like rings of rippling water, with the rock providing gravitational pull for the characters, while also holding the novel together.
In 2020 a British writer and her soon-to-be-ex-husband have journeyed to the rock to give thanks for the birth of the child they never expected to have, just as the COVID pandemic takes hold. In 1969, a young, wild American music star on the run hopes to find (or maybe lose) himself at the rock. In 1907, an indigenous Yoeme girl is taken by force. In 1775, a Spanish naval officer is engaged in the conquest of the coast. And the White Rock is a sacred, silent witness to each of their powerful stories.
The rock, and this structure, also provide the author with a means of exploring human commonalities across hugely different centuries — the mistakes we make, the losses we endure, the love and violence that bites our hearts and souls. With each set of stories swimming in emotion, this is a novel to take your time over, allowing its wisdom to sink in.
| Primary Genre | General Fiction |
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