Man with a Seagull on His Head

July 1, 2018
A strange encounter with the natural world ignites an artist's career.On an English beach one otherwise unremarkable day in June 1976, Ray Eccles is struck on the head by a plummeting sea gull. That mishap inexplicably transforms the furloughed local government photocopy machine operator, so desperate for stimulation he believes an unexploded bomb beneath the sand "might be good company," into an acclaimed artist, obsessed with capturing, in a series of portraits all entitled "She," the image of the unknown woman who was the sole witness to the startling event that triggers his metamorphosis. Paige's slim debut novel is the elegiac story of the enigmatic Ray and the handful of characters who gravitate to his equally mysterious work. They include George and Grace Zoob, sophisticated collectors of outsider art, who discover Ray's "intimate, magical and strange" painting when he's first producing it only on the walls of his small home in Southend-on-Sea, using everything from food to his own blood and semen; their daughter, Mira; and Jennifer Mulholland, Ray's inadvertent muse, who's trapped in a companionable but sterile marriage, her quiet despair only deepened by the memory of the moment her life collided with Ray's at the seaside. Whether it's Grace, who "felt herself being filled in, fashioned anew, a second, truer skin knitting itself around her like a healing wound" as she models for Ray, or Jennifer, aching with the realization, when she reflects on her long union, that "the longer they were married the less they knew each other," Paige exercises impressive restraint in her emotionally precise portrait of ordinary people groping for something extraordinary to fill a hole in their lives. Only some of the novel's principal characters even approach that goal, but as Paige depicts it in a moving climax at London's Tate Modern gallery, great art can serve as a "direct, sensuous response to the world" that's not only pleasing to the eye, but also profoundly engaging to the heart.A gentle fable about the mystery of artistic creativity.

COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

September 24, 2018
Page’s graceful debut follows an unwitting artist’s rise to fame and provides deep introspections about loneliness and death. A seagull falls from the sky and hits Ray Eccles on the beach in Shoeburyness, England. A discombobulated Ray fixates on Jennifer Mulholland, the only witness of his accident, and subsequently covers the walls of his house with crudely drawn renditions of her face (always as he saw it right after the accident) using whatever materials he can find: food, blood, semen. His frantic work draws the attention of outsider art collectors George and Grace Zoob. They move Ray into their London apartment and attempt to involve him in their open marriage, though Ray does not reciprocate their attraction. Years later, Ray has gained significant success from obsessively producing the same image. Jennifer, now married into a sprawling Italian family, learns that she has been an unwitting muse. She travels to London to meet Ray, arriving just as Grace assaults Ray over his indifference to her. Ray flees with no memory of his time as an artist and spends years on the street with a befriended pigeon. The story concludes far in the future with a touching final moment. The novel’s charming, light tone nicely balances its powerful meditations on art and failed expectations, resulting in a moving story.

October 15, 2018

DEBUT Ray Eccles appears to be an ordinary bloke. After his mother's death, he rents a bungalow in Shoeburyness, England, photocopies forms for the Southend District Council, and keeps to himself. All changes on his 40th birthday when a seagull falls on his head. Just before impact, he looks deeply into the eyes and soul of a young woman who sits nearby on the beach and forever after compulsively paints her image using whatever is at hand--the walls of the house, food, and other less wholesome materials. In her debut novel, Canadian author Paige uncovers Eccles's life, his discovery as an outsider artist, and the lives of those touched by him. From the woman who is his muse to the art collectors who promote him, his paintings act as the catalyst leading to their accidental encounters. Paige explores the need for her characters to prove their existence through art, crafts, writing, painting, and business. VERDICT Published in Canada in 2017, this novel introduces readers to a new and exciting voice worth watching closely.--Jacqueline Snider, Toronto

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.