DRINKERS OF DARKNESS

by Gerald Hanley ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 23, 1955

A third (The Consul at Sunset. The Year of the Lion; novel of Africa returns to the familiar topography of the earlier books-and charts- implacably- the dissolution of British colonialism. Here too, in the ""sweat, heat and the hate"", more than the landscape is burnt out, and the handful of Enghishmen living in Mambango have known failure elsewhere and are for the most part morally as well as physically dispossessed. The narrative, such as it is, takes place in the few weeks which precede Christmas; the natives are restive and presage the weakening African acceptance of the white man's superioritybut the British are perhaps as simpleminded as their ""wogs"" and do not recognize a changing world. There are also unpleasant incidents of a more personal nature; Mooning, who has married a sensuous bitch, Amy, rows with her over Plume, who now shares her bed; O'Riordan is dying of cancer and racked by pain; Tamlin, the boss, is bewildered by the many indications of faltering prestige; etc., etc., and the assurance of a once proud rule dims in a climate of defeat and decay. All of this- the lonely country here, the seedy, faded men and women to whom it once represented an escape- is sharply observed and communicated; none of it, sere as it is, is likely to attract an American audience.

Pub Date: Aug. 23, 1955

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1955

Categories: FICTION