Possessing enormous physical strength, Seamus has a sacred and intimate relationship with the sea, can shape-shift, and has been gifted with second sight. But he is no hero. Illiterate and largely mute, he is a warrior without a sword, a poet without words. In the absence of his own voice, Seamus’ story is told by his son Tomas a seannachie, partly spinning an overblown yarn in the Celtic oral tradition and, at other times, falling into his role as schoolteacher. Magical realism meets historical fiction in this novel, loosely based on real events occurring in the first years of white incursion into South Australia from the 1830s to the 1870s. From Ireland to the land that would become Australia, Nature’s Fool crosses oceans, lands and time in its exploration of identity, place and belonging.
