At last, from the crest of a little cliff, we gazed with emotion on the rushing
waters of the great river. How touching it was to see again our childhood
friend, and to think that the very waters we now gaze upon will, after who knows
how many weeks, and after how many strange sights and unknown scenes, pass our
childhood homes. Sid Smiths second novel is set in the early 1900s, in a place
as inaccessible, mysterious and beguiling as the setting of Something Like A
House. In A House By The River, two western missionaries visit a lonely
community by the river. The wife, Grace, keeps a diary, and through this the
reader begins to find out about Chinese ideograms and the foundations of
Christianitysomething so world-shattering that a prominent Chinese official
wants it to remain suppressed. Sid Smith spent the first seven years of his
working life in labouring jobsincluding woodsman, hod-carrier, railway labourer,
gravedigger, stagehand and self-employed gardener. Smith has worked extensively
for newspapers and magazines and is now a freelance sub-editor on national
newspapers. His first novel, Something Like A House, won the 2001 Whitbread
First Novel Award.