Sacrament - Hardcover

Barker, Clive

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060174889 ISBN 13: 9780060174880

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1996

Synopsis

A famous photographer lying in a coma holds the key to the salvation of the world. But first he must travel back into the traumatic events of his childhood.

Will Rabjohns has everything. He’s handsome, he’s rich, and he’s revered as the world’s greatest wildlife photographer. He’s also a haunted man, driven to risk his life for his art – to capture the raw tragedy of the wild, the beauty of nature’s violence.

After a near fatal encounter with a polar bear, he lies in a coma. There he must relive a central childhood memory: a meeting with ancient and terrible forces which revealed to him the mystery at the heart of nature. And he realizes that if he awakes, he must confront the darkness of his past and wage a war, not only for his own soul, but for the soul of the planet and every animal that breathes upon it.

About this title

Review:

A boy has an encounter with a man who causes extinctions of other species, and as a result grows up to be a man who documents (and thus appeals for a halt to) those extinctions. This dark fantasy tale is unlike most of Clive Barker's work, being more tightly plotted, and more of this world. In a sequence of well-executed stories within stories (comparable to Russian dolls), Barker unfolds a compelling examination of what it means to be human, to be a man and, more specifically, to be a gay man on a planet where ageing, disease and death bring "the passing of things, of days and beasts and men he'd loved." A satisfying long novel packed with vivid images, memorable characters and a melancholy mood that reaches for hope.

Review:

‘A gripping book that weaves a compulsive spell... vintage Barker’
The Times

‘Barker’s unique brand of eco-mysticism weaves as potent a spell as ever’
Maxim

‘The premier metaphysicist of contemporary fiction. Breathtaking.’
Locus

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0060174889
• ISBN 13: 9780060174880
• Binding: Hardcover