tQ writer and BBC Radio 3 Late Junction host Jennifer Lucy Allan is to publish a book on the honking navigational aids that surround our coasts.
The Foghorn’s Lament covers not just the shipwrecks, eccentrics and remarkable feats of engineering that constitute the history of foghorns, but investigates them as a cultural phenomenon that intersects with soundsystem culture, ship symphonies, and the very question of what, exactly, music is.
Speaking about the book, Allan says: "You get some funny looks when you say you’re writing a book about foghorns, as it seems so esoteric, but this huge melancholic sound has something to tell us about the way sound operates in our lives. It is one that’s captivated me for years – as it not only connects us to maritime and coastal landscapes, but can trigger intense emotions and associations with life and death, safety and danger, even in those of us who didn’t grow up near the sea.
"As a writer I’m fascinated in how seemingly obscure stories often contain much bigger, more profound truths. Lee and the team at White Rabbit have understood this potential of The Foghorn’s Lament from the very beginning."
The book will be published by White Rabbit, the new imprint run by Lee Brackstone as part of W&N, who published tQ co-founder Luke Turner’s memoir Out Of The Woods in 2019. In its first year of operation, White Rabbit has already released acclaimed books by Mark Lanegan, Richard Russell of XL, Jehnny Beth, Annie Nightingale, David Keenan and Robin Turner. Also forthcoming from tQ writers on White Rabbit are Harry Sword’s Monolithic Undertow on drone music, and a music-related book by Adelle Stripe.
Speaking about Allan’s book, Brackstone said" "Every so often a book comes along which reaffirms your belief that wonder and joy are perhaps our two most essential and undervalued emotional states. We look, but what do we see; we listen but what do we hear? The Foghorn’s Lament is a captivating journey into a world you never suspected you might be fascinated by. It will change your appreciation and understanding of the relationship between sound and music, and it is the unquestionably the most romantic book about the relationship between the land and the sea, man and the elements, I have ever read."
You can preorder the book here and see the cover below.
