Remaking the Voyage : New Essays on Malcolm Lowry and 'In Ballast to the White Sea'

An Open Access edition of this book is available on theLiverpool University Press website and the OAPEN library. ‘Whoever thought they would one day be able to read Malcolm Lowry’s fabled novel ofthe 1930s and 40s, In Ballast to theWhite Sea?

Lord knows, I didn’t’ – Michael Hofmann, TLSThis book breaks new ground in studies of the Britishnovelist Malcolm Lowry (1909–57), as the first collection of new essaysproduced in response to the publication in 2014 of a scholarly edition ofLowry’s ‘lost’ novel, In Ballast to theWhite Sea.

In their introduction, editors Helen Tookey and Bryan Biggsshow how the publication of In Ballastsheds new light on Lowry as both a highly political writer and one deeplyinfluenced by his native Merseyside, as his protagonist SigbjørnHansen-Tarnmoor walks the streets of Liverpool, wrestling with his ownconscience and with pressing questions of class, identity and socialreform.

In the chapters that follow, renowned Lowryscholars and newer voices explore key aspects of the novel and its relation tothe wider contexts of Lowry’s work.

These include his complex relation to socialismand communism, the symbolic value of Norway, and thesignificance of tropes of loss, hauntings and doublings.

The book draws on theunexpected opportunity offered by the rediscovery of In Ballast to look afresh at Lowry’s oeuvre, to ‘remake the voyage’.