This dramatic and heart-stopping novel recreates very real events of shocking, unimaginable brutality which take place in Argentina in the fall of 1979, three years after the end of the Peronist democracy, and you will not forget these events. After the military seizes power, the characters, as real as you and I, and with the same goals and dreams, have no alternative but to go about their lives trying to maintain a low profile, and as the atrocities continue, they begin to affect these characters and the people they know and love. The novel becomes a revelation in which one cannot help but wonder, ultimately, how these atrocities were allowed to begin at all, and, even more importantly, how they were able to continue unimpeded within a country which was part of the Organization of American States. Rich with history, the novel is populated by a large and well developed cast of characters. The insights into the US position regarding the human rights abuses in these countries, and the secrecy with which they were treated are illuminating, as is the collusion of the Catholic Church in the abuses. An incredible achievement,
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Numerous authors, in recent years, have written about the settlement of Australia and the taking of aboriginal lands by white settlers, something the Australian government has recently tried to rectify through legislation and for which they have apologized. Kim Scott’s That Deadman Dance is unique, however. The son of an aborigine (Noongar) father and white mother, Scott has written this novel from the Noongar point of view, bringing it to life through the stories surrounding Bobby Wabalanginy and his family, who are named for members of the author’s own family. From his earliest days, Bobby has been connected to whales, and he remembers Menak, the King of the Noongars (and his father), telling him about sliding inside a whale’s blowhole, warming himself beside its heart, and joining his voice to the whale’s roar, a story Bobby vividly imagines reliving himself. At one point, he even describes his mother acquiring him “when [a still live] whale came up on the beach.” As more and more people come to King George Town, including British, Yankee whalers and the French, however, these “horizon people” begin to claim more property, and each time they do, they must take it from the Noongars. The novel is breathtaking and important, and few readers will finish it without feeling exhausted by its intensity. Superb!
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In lush and often lyrical language, author Gail Jones creates a consummately literary novel which takes place on Circular Quay, surrounding the Opera House, during one hot summer day in Sydney. Four major characters are dealing with personal losses and memories of the past which make it difficult, if not impossible, for them to participate fully in the present. Deaths haunt them all, and as they gravitate individually towards the Opera House, they relive events from their lives. Time is relative as the novel moves forward and then swirls backward during each character’s reminiscences. Only Ellie and James know each other. The other characters lead independent lives, and any connection among them will be just a glancing blow, a random event – one of the minor acts of fate. A mysterious fifth character, who materializes without warning in the conclusion, serves as a catalyst to bring the novel to its thematic conclusion. Literary and artistic references pepper the narrative, adding depth to the themes of love, loss, and death. Sometimes the prose is weighed down by the elaborate imagery, but the novel still offers much of interest to those who enjoy highly literary novels, and the thematic focus and the setting are unusual and intriguing.
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Posted in 0-2012 Reviews, Australia, Book Club Suggestions, Coming-of-age, Historical, Literary, Mystery, Thriller, Noir, Social and Political Issues on Feb 26th, 2012
If there is such a genre as “Australian Gothic,” this novel would be one of its best-written examples. The sights, sounds, and smells of the bush, filled with storms, heat, dust, and exotic birds and animals, vibrate with life—and death—both physical and spiritual. Set in remote and sparsely populated Western Australia in the early 1940s, this 2008 novel recreates the life of Perdita Keene, a ten-year-old child not wanted by her British expatriate parents, who had hoped she would die at birth. Perdita, whose childhood is formed by the aborigine women who nursed her in infancy, develops a strong friendship with Mary, an aborigine girl five years older, and Billy, the deaf-mute son of the Trevors, white people who run a local cattle station. All three children are outcasts for various reasons, and their bonds with each other are total and life-affirming. The murder of Perdita’s father, described in the opening pages, is at the core of the novel, and the circumstances surrounding the case are not clear. All three children witness the crime, but Perdita, the narrator for most of the novel, is so traumatized that she cannot remember details. Lyrical, sensual, and full of passion, Sorry is a novel that is dramatically intense, full of emotion.
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Dan Vyleta’s The Quiet Twin offers a unique perspective on the growing menace of National Socialism in Vienna, in 1939. Using an ordinary apartment building and the events which affect the seemingly ordinary characters who inhabit it as a microcosm for the terrifying realities which are about to come, Vyleta creates an almost unparalleled atmosphere of fear and dread. An absorbing literary novel, which never loses its way as it progresses, it is ultimately a horror novel which out-horrors almost all others, not because of the awful events which unfold, but because the unfolding action feels so casual and so domestic in the context of the residents’ lives. And that is the whole point. Throughout the action, each character decides in a moment of crisis, that “just this once” s/he will ignore the promises made to others and the values which have always been paramount in civilized society in favor of what works best for himself/herself at that moment. The result is a societal compromise of epic proportions, one which allows the Nazi menace to take hold. The word “Holocaust” never appears, though the psychological horror, political horror, sociological horror, and moral horror come to life in new ways as the action in this apartment house unfolds.
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