reading notes

by Tom Gilling

ISBN: 0141002018

The Sooterkin is set in and near Hobart Town, Van Diemen’s Land in the early 1800s. (Around the same time and place as Flanagan’s Gould’s Book of Fish.) For a story set among convicts, near-convicts, hostile geography, and unforgiving odors, it is quite charming.

A sooterkin is a fantastic creature supposedly born to a few Dutch women in the 1700s. In this story, a women gives birth to a creature that probably isn’t but may be a sooterkin. Ther are plenty of questions here: Did she give birth to a seal pup, a deformed baby, a sooterkin, or something else? What does it mean if the “crittur” isn’t a fraud?

This short and amusing novel follows these questions while trying to figure out who has absconded with the infant/seal pup/sooterkin, what will become of the alcoholic chaplain, and if Ned (the older brother) will figure out how to use his “intyvishun.” A different and fun read, recommended.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2004 at 10:11 pm and is filed under fiction.