The most detailed and complex novel that author Abdulrazak Gurnah (from Zanzibar) has written on the subjects of immigration and displacement so far, The Last Gift is a multigenerational novel which opens with Abbas, a sixty-three-year-old man whose origins are, at first, unknown, returning to his residence in England after work. A conscientious, driven man, he is also very private, keeping to himself and not sharing his past even with his family. He becomes ill on the way home one extremely cold day, so ill that this proud man “wishes for someone to pick him up and carry him home.” Collapsing, he is taken to the hospital, where, worried, in pain, and thinking he might die, he realizes “that he had left things for too long, as he had known for so many years. There was so much he should have said, but he had allowed the silence to set until it became immovable.” As Abbas tries to gain the courage to reveal his thirty-year-old secrets to his family, the points of view shift among Abbas, his wife Maryam, his daughter Hanna, and his son Jamal, all of whom are trying to discover who they are in the British culture which they find themselves and into which they do not seem to fit. Gurnah stresses the themes of alienation, displacement, escape, guilt, hope, and eventually resolution among the family.
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Setting her novel in 1939, in the immediate aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, author Rebecca C. Pawel carefully recreates many of the elements which led to that civil war and which continued in the partisan turmoil that continued long after that. Sometimes described by Republicans as “a war between tyranny and democracy,” and by Nationalists as “a war between Communists, anarchists, and ‘Red Hordes’ against civilization,” the Spanish Civil War (1936 – 1939) attracted extremists on both sides, and those sides were not always clearly delineated. Because the action, the motivations, and the shifting allegiances are complex here, the author wisely keeps her narrative style simple, moving the action along on the strength of her characters, who are memorable despite the fact that they are somewhat superficial examples of the various factions at work in Madrid at the time. Sgt. Carlos Tejada Alonso y Leon, a mid-level gardia, is widely honored by his fellow officers, having been involved earlier in the Siege of Alcazar in Toledo. Tejada often behaves in ways which will be repugnant to readers, but he is also depicted in the confused context of the period. He is brought to the scene of a murdered guardia who was his best friend – Francisco Lopez Perez, known as Paco, a man with whom he had lost touch during the war and whose body he had to identify on the street. Realistic and filled with the kind of details that only someone who has studied all aspects of this war would know, the novel is both a good mystery and an especially readable depiction of an otherwise confusing time of history.
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The Industry of Souls, written in 1998, opens with a thoughtful and loving tribute to the human spirit: “It is the industry of the soul, to love and to hate; to seek after the beautiful and to recognise the ugly; to honour friends and wreak vengeance upon enemies; yet, above all, it is the work of the soul to prove it can be steadfast in these matters.” Here, and throughout the novel, author Martin Booth focuses on ideas of industry and work, but as he expresses his ideas, he often uses deliberate, poetic parallels to Biblical verses: “[There is] a time to love and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace [Ecclesiastes]…” Alexander Bayliss, known as Shurik, is celebrating his eightieth birthday, as the novel opens. Walking around Myshkino, the Russian village where he lives, he visits with residents and recalls his life as a prisoner in the mines of Siberia, contrasting it with his life in Myshkino since then. At eighty, he is a man completely at peace with his world, celebrating the love, endurance, and forgiveness which have made his life not only bearable, but ultimately, full of joy. Through flashbacks and shifting time frames, he shows how he, a British businessman, came to be a prisoner in the Soviet Union, a worker in a Siberian coal mine, and how he coped for twenty years.
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This is one of the most memorable books I have read in many years (and I can count on one hand the times I have said that in a review). Breath-taking in its emotional impact, insightful in its depiction of the main character and themes, and completely honest, I found myself in tears in places, silently begging the main character not to make some of the choices that I knew she would inevitably make. Eva, an ordinary, elderly woman with a now-silent husband, ten years older, tells her own story, with all the hesitations, flashbacks, regrets, and questions which are tormenting her now and which have confounded her husband. In creating Eva, Norwegian author Merethe Lindstrom has brought to life one of the most vividly depicted characters I have ever “known,” a character filled with flaws, like the rest of us, prone to second-guessing, like the rest of us, and sometimes overcome with regret for past mistakes, like the rest of us, and she does this without any hints of authorial manipulation in Eva’s story, which feels as if it is emerging of its own will from Eva’s depths. More reminiscent of a memoir than fiction, Eva’s story ultimately offers much to think about, while offering its own silent commentary on the choices we make and how they affect those around us. Though this is one of the most memorable books I have read in years, it will not appeal to everyone. See last paragraph of review.
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In this uniquely Irish combination of satire and morality tale, author Claire Kilroy introduces the young, alcoholic thirteenth Earl of Howth, who is testifying in a 2016 legal case about the “Celtic Tiger” and the Irish real estate “bubble” from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s, a case in which he was an active, but naïve, participant. Summoned to court years later, Tristram St. Lawrence gives evidence for ten days between March 10, 2016, and March 24, 2016, his whereabouts a mystery from the time of the real estate crash to the much later trial. Though he was personally involved in several enormous real estate schemes during the height of the action, he was, from the outset, a front man – a figurehead whom M. Deauville, a mysterious foreign investor, chose for his noble background and the presumed legitimacy his title would bestow on the projects being undertaken by Castle Holdings, domiciled in the thousand-year-old castle in Howth owned by Tristram’s father. Author Claire Kilroy presents Tristram’s story as part satire and part morality tale, a style which makes it possible for the reader to recognize how vulnerable, and almost cartoon-like, Tristram is. Though no reader will take Tristram seriously, most readers will be empathetic as they recognize how he is manipulated on his step-by-step journey to disaster. Entertaining and enlightening.
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