Winner, Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize

Herring is a hapless lobster fisher lost in an unexceptional life, bored of thinking the same old thoughts. One December day, following a hunch, he cuts a hole in the living room floor and installs a hoist, altering the course of everything in his life. His wife Euna leaves with their children. He buries the family dog in a frozen grave on Christmas Eve. He and his friend Gerry crash his truck into a field, only to be rescued by a passing group of Tibetan monks.

During the spring lobster season, Herring and Gerry find themselves caught in a storm front. Herring falls overboard miles from the harbour, is lost at sea for days, and assumed to be drowned. And then, he is found, miraculously, alive. Having come so near to death, he is forced to confront the things he fears the most: love, friendship, belief, and himself.

Some Hellish is a story about anguish and salvation, the quiet grace and patience of transformation, the powers of addiction and fear, the plausibility of forgiveness, and the immense capacity of friendship and of love.

Nicholas Herring’s writings have appeared in the Puritan and the Fiddlehead. He lives in Murray Harbour, PEI, where he works as a carpenter. Some Hellish is Herring’s debut novel.

Nicholas Herring's profile page

• Winner, Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize