Three Views of Crystal Water

Govier, Katherine

ISBN 10: 0002005891 / ISBN 13: 9780002005890

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Limited, Toronto, ON, 2005

About this Item

SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY KATHERINE GOVIER on title page; Clean, tight, unmarked; absolute minimal wear; On a small Japanese island, 16-year-old Vera comes to womanhood among the ama, who dive for shellfish on the ocean floor. Here she is immersed in the tales of avarice and beauty that emerge from the secret world of the pearl merchants. But when war makes her friends into 'the enemy', Vera realizes that she must leave the island - the one place she truly feels at home - for the safety of Canada.

Seller Inventory # 002910

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Three Views of Crystal Water
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Limited, Toronto, ON
• Publication Date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0002005891
• ISBN 13: 9780002005890
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Signed: Inscribed by Author(s)

About this title

Synopsis

Listen as author Katherine Govier discusses the history and context behind the writing of Three Views of Crystal Water in this series of exclusive videos.

In this lucid and exotic tale, Katherine Govier delves into the19th-century pearl rush. Greed for the unearthly luster drove sea-farers toscour the ocean floor until the plunder all but destroyed the divers, the oysterbeds and the pearl itself. But on a small island off the coast of Japan, a mantamed the oysters, learning to create pearls at will.

Three Views of Crystal Water is told by the Canadian girlVera, who comes of age amongst the brave women divers of Japan. Nurtured by the amacommunity, she learns to dive 45 feet with a single breath. She also findsher first lover. In the lives of the simple fisherfolk, loyalty is everything.But Vera is an outsider, and when war is declared in Europe, she must go home toVancouver. In the murky streets of Gastown, Vera comes to understand thepearl-lust that has divided the men in her family. But it is years later whenshe discovers what catastrophes war has brought to her friends, and whatdeliverance to her young lover, and herself.

Like the divers it so compellingly portrays, Three Views ofCrystal Water penetrates far below life’s surface. Part fable, parthistory and entirely original, this novel is infused by Govier’s profoundreflections on nature—both earthly and human.

About the Author

KATHERINE GOVIER’s novel Creation, about John James Audubon in Labrador, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year in 2003. She is the winner of Canada’s Marian Engel Award for a woman writer in mid-career and the Toronto Book Award. Katherine has been a visiting lecturer in both creative writing and magazine journalism at York University, Ryerson Polytechnic University and the University of Leeds (England). Visit her online at www.govier.com.