The Accidental Indies, by Robert Finley, bears reading at least twice, although in description it sounds very straightforward. It is about Christopher Columbus and his first voyage toward what we now call the Western Hemisphere. The point of view is that of an observer, travelling alongside the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. The outlines of Finley’s account correspond to what we know of Columbus’s voyage.

It is fitting that this slim book is the first fiction title from McGill-Queen’s University Press, which recently began publishing poetry. Like the best poetry, Finley’s prose is dense with image and full of insights that are not necessarily apparent on first reading. The title, for example, only becomes clear after reflection on Finley’s descriptions of Columbus’s navigational problems. Columbus knew where he was going, Finley writes, and took for signs that he was getting there things that had no relation to his ships’ real progress. “Good navigators are always skeptical, not of the presences of things, but of what they see and understand. Good navigators are always almost lost. But Columbus is a visionary, and visionaries are not good navigators.”

Finley tells his tale in language that vividly summons up the sea: “The bright waters babble at the bows and out of the wind the sun is hot and drowsy. There is the gentle crushing of the waves and the spar’s rhythmic creaking, and somewhere overhead a pennant drums irregularly against the taut cotton of the sails.” Do not expect a swashbuckling tale, however: Finley is as subtle and indirect as a sailor tacking close to the wind. The result is a book that will please lovers of the sea as well as those who care about writing that puts the right word in exactly the right place.