May Flynn, the daughter of actor Errol Flynn and a beautiful Jamaican girl, has always wondered about her roots. Brought up by her mother and grandfather, and, for four years, a foster family, May is clever and tough from a young age. Always an outsider, she could pass for white, though she is not part of the white world of her father and maternal grandfather. Not part of the black world, either, though she considers herself “colored,” she is often mocked by her dark Jamaican peers. Frequently alone, she enjoys keeping journals, filling them with stories of pirates, inspired by the films she sees at the local cinema and starring Errol Flynn. As May discovers more about her mother and her mother’s life before, during, and after her birth, she creates the story of her own life, which ultimately becomes this novel. Filled with colorful characters, the patina of Hollywood, and the violence of political change, the novel is a fast-paced melodrama and family saga. The author’s style is clean and simple as she traces lives across generations, providing enough description to enable the reader to create vibrant pictures of the action without bogging down the narrative.
Read Full Post »
Always focusing on aspects of Egyptian social and political history in his novels, Nobel Prize-winning author Naguib Mahfouz here depicts three generations of one family as they try to survive the socially tumultuous period between the Six Day War with Israel in 1967 and the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981. The loss of the Six Day War in 1967 was a national humiliation for Egypt, which lost the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip, as a result. Following the death of President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1970, his successor President Anwar Sadat tried to regain the lost territories with a surprise attack that initiated the Yom Kippur War in 1973, but again Egypt failed to win a strong military victory. This tumultuous period was not only a period in which the nation suffered blows to its national self-image, both at home and among its neighboring Arab states, because of its military losses, but also a period of enormous economic hardships. Alternating points of view among his characters, Mahfouz creates a novel which shows the domestic difficulties faced by educated Egyptian city-dwellers as they try to live their lives under the less structured new economic system, which has replaced the system with which they have long been familiar.
Read Full Post »
In a narrative so hard-hitting that the viewer actually feels battered by the time it reaches its conclusion, a Maori family with five children must deal with urban violence, poverty, drugs, alcoholism, unemployment, gang warfare, rape, physical and mental abuse, suicide, and a host of other horrific family problems, all depicted graphically. Beth and Jake Heke and their five children, along with numerous other Maori families, live in an urban ghetto of government-supported housing, isolated from the rest of society and isolated, too, from their old rural culture, which once gave pride and a sense of identity to Maori families. Here in the city the prevailing “culture” centers around bars, rather than the ancient meeting houses.
Read Full Post »
I can’t recall when I’ve ever felt so strongly the musical rhythm of an author’s style, or the extent to which it changes to suit the tempo of the action and themes. In the first third of this wonderful book by a very talented writer, conversations between the simple Mary and Granny Tamihana, the guardian of Maori traditions, echo and sound like chants; between Roimata and Hemi, a happily married couple, they resemble duets with complimentary themes. The scene in which Mary gives birth is a grand, complex chorus with the several family members singing over, around, and above each other as they fight for the narrative line. Toko’s story of his big fish is a soaring aria which ventures into a mystical realm, for Toko is a seer. And all this music seems totally appropriate to the lives of these Maori characters living in harmony with the land and their ancestors.
Read Full Post »
Combining moments of danger with moments of profound introspection, mountaineer/explorer Ridgeway details his journey from the top of Mount Kilimanjaro through the Tsavo game reserves to Mombasa, a month-long journey on foot, which allows him to experience man’s primal relationships with the environment. Traveling with an experienced guide, two members of the Kenya Park and Wildlife Service, and two sharpshooters (in case of life-threatening danger), Ridgeway follows dry riverbeds across the savanna, seeking “tactile knowledge of Africa’s wildlands and wild animals.”
Read Full Post »
