Aaron Blaker

Summer. A relentless rain falls — on the houses, on the cemetery, on the rotting boards of the pier.

Hector arrives in a small East Coast town along with the millennial rains. He is captivated by the elemental beauty of the swimmer Marama, the community’s own Pania of the reef. Alongside his obsession grows disgust at the squalid violence of daily life around him.

Ten years later, Eric and his daughter wash up in the township. Eric needs to know what happened to his brother, but the community, unnerved by his resemblance to that other stranger, wants to leave the past submerged.

A finely calibrated story — deeply humane, and darkly uneasy.