By the Obsidian Sea

By the Obsidian Sea is a story about the realities facing the children of Lebanese immigrants who came to Australia to escape the problems of their homeland and settle in the sixties and seventies. Its a story told from the perspective of Jean Ray, an Australian who married into a Lebanese family after a journey of discovery of his own and who observes all the pitfalls and beauties of marrying the Lebanese way with the Australian cultural landscape. His journey takes the reader through the birth of his children, the fights and loves of his adopted family, from within Australia, and then on a journey through Lebanon itself. Jean Ray explores what it is to be a family man living in the twenty first century with all its contradictions and dangers, and through his eyes the reader is introduced to the characters inhabiting his world. This book is a literary tour-de-force and raises the basic human themes of love and tolerance, forgiveness, pain and loss and celebration. Discover the "something" that "needs to be done", and why that mantra appears as a heart beat rhythm beneath the themes of the stories. This is a book for serious readers of good fiction who want to be more than just entertained but enlightened and surprised, who crave to get carried into another world by the writing.