Nature's Fool

Nature's Fool by Timothy Doyle combines magical realism and historical fiction in an expansive exploration of identity, place, and belonging, moving from Ireland to early colonial Australia.

Seamus, endowed with enormous physical strength, possesses a sacred and intimate relationship with the sea, has the ability to shape-shift, and is gifted with second sight. However, 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 narrated by his son Tomas, a seannachie, who partly spins an overblown yarn in the Celtic oral tradition and at other times embraces his role as a schoolteacher.

Loosely based on real events from the first years of white incursion into South Australia, from the 1830s to the 1870s, this novel traverses oceans, lands, and time from Ireland to the land that would become Australia. Nature's Fool delves into the themes of identity, place, and belonging.