SOURCE: Pei, Lowry. Review of Continent, by Jim Crace. Boston Review 12, no. 4 (August 1987): 30-1.

In the following review, Pei surveys the major themes of Continent.

Jim Crace's Continent is an artful bulletin from a part of the world, and a state of human awareness, that we cannot afford to ignore. It is a thin book, originally published in England, that comes with enough praise written on its back to sink a larger one. The writers quoted on its dust jacket seem to have a hard time defining what they obviously admire; Crace is compared to no less than five different authors in an effort to capture the essence of his fiction.

The book's epigraph reads, “There and beyond is a seventh continent. … And its business is trade and superstition”; seven pieces of fiction taking place on this nonexistent land mass make up the book. These short narratives, four...