Signals Of Distress

November, 1836. A Fierce Gale Beaches An American Sail Ship Off The English Coast, Injuring An African Slave Below Decks And Eventually Disgorging 300 Head Of Cattle And Rowdy American Sailors Into A Hardscrabble Fishing Village. The Same Storm Drives Into Port A Steamer, Bearing One Aymer Smith, The Foolish Well-Intentioned Prig Who Will Deprive The Town Of Its Livelihood, Free The African Slave, And Set Into Motion A Whole Series Of Unforeseeable, Tragicomic Events. One Of The Most Seductive And Surprising Novelist At Work Today, Once Again Creates A Richly Strange And Believable World, Uncannily Familiar To Our Own.