Anthony Doerr - The Shell Collector

4th Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.4thEstate.co.uk

First published by Flamingo 2002

This eBook edition published by 4th Estate 2016

Copyright © Anthony Doerr 2002

Anthony Doerr asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

This collection of stories is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All but one of the stories in this collection have appeared elsewhere, in slightly different form: ‘The Hunter’s Wife’ in Atlantic Monthly ; ‘So Many Chances’ in the Sycamore Review and Fly Rod & Reel ; ‘For a Long Time This Was Griselda’s Story’ in the North American Review ; ‘July Fourth’ in the Black Warrior Review ; ‘The Caretaker’ in the Paris Review ; ‘A Tangle by the Rapid River’ in the Sewanee Review ; and ‘The Shell Collector’ in the Chicago Review .

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9780007146987

Ebook Edition © December 2011: 9780007392469

Version: 2018-09-13

‘These complex, resonant, beautifully realised stories sing. An entire world unfolds in each, memorable and rich; together, they form a remarkable first collection.’

ANDREA BARRETT, author of The Voyage of the Narwhal and Ship Fever

‘Doerr bears witness to history here – not the traditional history of big events or great people, but the small, anonymous corners from which the best stories can be told. Here is that rare and brave thing, a writer who doesn’t succumb to any of the easy temptations, but still manages to make a unique, powerful, and accessible music. Quite simply, this is the best collection of short stories that I’ve read in years.’

COLUM McCANN, author of Dancer

‘An impressive first collection…Doerr’s stories evoke the ecstatic feeling that comes from loving something or someone very much.’

TLS

‘Excellent stories…Doerr makes miraculous happenings seem natural because of his clean, classic style, an impressive achievement.’

Sunday Times

‘This assured literary debut has an almost ethereal quality about it: eerie and otherworldly in atmosphere, yet lucid, crisp and graceful in style. These short stories are linked by the overall themes of the complicated profundities of human emotion, the awe-inspiring beauty of nature and the numinous miracles of love…Doerr’s characters will hang around in your dreams long after you’ve finished the book.’

Venue

‘Doerr is fascinated by the way that the shape of things we can hold in our hands might be analogous to the shape of things we struggle harder to understand: love, loss, memory…When Doerr combines his talent for vivid observation with an understated look at some of the trials of being human he manages to move us far more often than not.’

Hampstead & Highgate Express

‘Loss, estrangement and distance are the collection’s keynotes. Doerr frames and executes these stories with seemingly effortless panache.’

Economist

‘The shell collector of the title is a blind man who roams the beaches of Kenya, feeling his way through the sand in search of smooth prizes. He’s just one of the enigmatic characters who populate the short stories in this strange, beautifully written collection.’

Sunday Tribune

‘Quite simply amazing. Not since Rick Bass’s The Watch has a first collection roamed so far in both language and landscape, presenting the natural and human-made worlds with equal beauty and awe.’

TOM FRANKLIN, author of Poachers

for Shauna

Cover

Title Page The Shell Collector Anthony Doerr

Copyright

Praise

Dedication

The Shell Collector

The Hunter’s Wife

So Many Chances

For a Long Time This Was Griselda’s Story

July Fourth

The Caretaker

A Tangle by the Rapid River

Mkondo

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Keep Reading

About the Publisher

The shell collectorwas scrubbing limpets at his sink when he heard the water taxi come scraping over the reef. He cringed to hear it—its hull grinding the calices of finger corals and the tiny tubes of pipe organ corals, tearing the flower and fern shapes of soft corals, and damaging shells too: punching holes in olives and murexes and spiny whelks, in Hydatina physis and Turris babylonia. It was not the first time people tried to seek him out.

He heard their feet splash ashore and the taxi motor off, back to Lamu, and the light singsong pattern of their knock. Tumaini, his German shepherd, let out a low whine from where she was crouched under his sleeping cot. He dropped a limpet into the sink, wiped his hands and went, reluctantly, to greet them.

They were both named Jim, overweight reporters from a New York tabloid. Their handshakes were slick and hot. He poured them chai. They occupied a surprising amount of space in the kitchen. They said they were there to write about him: they would stay only two nights, pay him well. How did $10,000 American sound? He pulled a shell from his shirt pocket—a cerith—and rolled it in his fingers. They asked about his childhood: did he really shoot caribou as a boy? Didn’t he need good eyes for that?

He gave them truthful answers. It all held the air of whim, of unreality. These two big Jims could not actually be at his table, asking him these questions, complaining of the stench of dead shellfish. Finally they asked him about cone shells and the strength of cone venom, about how many visitors had come. They asked nothing about his son.

All night it was hot. Lightning marbled the sky beyond the reef. From his cot he heard siafu feasting on the big men and heard them claw themselves in their sleeping bags. Before dawn he told them to shake out their shoes for scorpions and when they did one tumbled out. It made tiny scraping sounds as it skittered under the refrigerator.