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Quinn, a sculptor literally
and figuratively at the end of his rope, flees New York City for
a capeside artists' colony. Fixated by trash, and reading Woolf’s
The Waves, Quinn trawls the streets and beaches of the little fishing
village, tentatively exploring his relationship to the place, his
art, his new friends, and himself. Moods of weather and landscape
suffuse this sparely written tale that, like sunlight that pierces
storm-clouds, illuminates exactly how much is stake in Quinn's haunting
search for the sublime. “Quinn's Passage is a delicious book, evoking the helical flows of its patron saint, Virginia Woolf, as well as the elegiac patterns of writers like Carole Maso in its pilgrimage of an artist's soul through a world recognizable to any of us. The novel combines a deft, poetic ear and nimble erudition and poetry to evoke the rhythm of time, a tidal succession of events, memories, visions, and passions which embody ‘the ocean dance’ that its title character ‘choreographs under his breath.’” —Michael Joyce
"A beautifully cadenced and charmed performance by a young writer of great soul and promise." —Carole Maso
About the Author: Kazim Ali is assistant professor
of Liberal Arts at The Culinary Institute of America and an editor
with the non-profit press Nightboat Books. His first book of poems
The Far Mosque will be published by Alice James Books in
2005. Quinn's Passage is his first novel.
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