Knight Terra Press
littera manet sed lector oraculum
est. 1995
The Ancestral Sea: a postmodern
love story
by Quinn Tyler Jackson
Let me begin, O sea of my ancestors,
by washing my nostrils with your foam
and thrusting my rope-torn hands
deeply into your cool, salty water
and bending my back to your crashing
while the seabirds cry out like muezzins
before the morning finally arrives.
Cyrus Drake, a celebrated painter at the vanguard of modern expressionism, finds himself ensnared between the echoes of a tragic, hazy past and the harsh realities of a present where his art feels as faded as the rathskeller jazz bar he frequents. Only by revisiting his ancestral roots to confront the truths surrounding a traumatic loss can Cyrus rediscover the passion for life and art he fears has abandoned him.
His voyage is not just a return to the physical landscapes and rooms of childhood but a deep, introspective quest into the ecstatic essence underwriting his identity as both artist and human being, capable of love but wary of its risks. Against the backdrop of a postmodern love story that weaves through the bustling streets of Manhattan and the abiding antiquity of Iran’s Caspian shores, The Ancestral Sea is a poignant exploration of redemption, the enduring beauty of art, and the possibility of rebirth from the broken stonework of our past hubris.
Born and raised in Western Canada, Jackson grew up as a child in logging camps, where radio plays and reading were his only forms of entertainment. Upon his return to the city, he felt the call to write fiction, and approached art with a passion and fury. Rather than jump directly into authorhood, he first edited, and then promoted others’ writing as a literary agent. Eventually, he moved forward into his own art, and his first three novels were published in the United Kingdom between 2000 and 2002.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2006. He is a member of the Writers’ Union of Canada.
Jackson lives in Western Canada, where he continues to write fiction and work in scientific research.
