A rare novel that’s as riveting as it is historically astute.
An Egyptian man is forced to travel to Palestine as a spy for the Roman Empire amid rumors that a prophecy of a Messiah has been fulfilled in Smith’s debut historical novel.
Khefren is a scribe in Alexandria, and according to his own typically self-effacing description, he’s “very, very ordinary.” He lives a reasonably comfortable life with his wife and two daughters, but his life really isn’t his own, as he’s little more than a servant to Roman Gaius Duccius Aquila, a tribune who hails from one of the most powerful families in Rome. Aquila notices an Ethiopian in town and, suspicious of his motives, compels Khefren to spy on him; the man turns out to be Shabako of Meroe, the court astrologer for the king of Kush, who’s on his way to see Persian friends in Palestine. Aquila takes this for evidence of a conspiratorial collaboration between Jews and Parthians against Rome and orders Khefren to accompany Shabako to gather more information. In a spirit of humble resignation, astutely and often comically captured by author Smith throughout the novel, Khefren complies: “I’d been sent on this journey with the understanding that I would betray the confidence of anyone who gave it.” Khefren’s journey is a perilous one—his life is threatened first by pirates, then by assassins—but the greatest danger he encounters comes from the Romans he serves. The author skillfully combines historical rigor and dramatic suspense with a light, humorous touch. He also broadens the story beyond mere political intrigue; while in Palestine, for example, Khefren learns more about the Judaic monotheism he finds perplexing and ends up searching for the new king that people say has come to deliver them from their earthly bondage.
A rare novel that’s as riveting as it is historically astute.Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2022
ISBN: 9798357952516
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.
Norwegian novelist Jacobsen folds a quietly powerful coming-of-age story into a rendition of daily life on one of Norway’s rural islands a hundred years ago in a novel that was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize.
Ingrid Barrøy, her father, Hans, mother, Maria, grandfather Martin, and slightly addled aunt Barbro are the owners and sole inhabitants of Barrøy Island, one of numerous small family-owned islands in an area of Norway barely touched by the outside world. The novel follows Ingrid from age 3 through a carefree early childhood of endless small chores, simple pleasures, and unquestioned familial love into her more ambivalent adolescence attending school off the island and becoming aware of the outside world, then finally into young womanhood when she must make difficult choices. Readers will share Ingrid’s adoration of her father, whose sense of responsibility conflicts with his romantic nature. He adores Maria, despite what he calls her “la-di-da” ways, and is devoted to Ingrid. Twice he finds work on the mainland for his sister, Barbro, but, afraid she’ll be unhappy, he brings her home both times. Rooted to the land where he farms and tied to the sea where he fishes, Hans struggles to maintain his family’s hardscrabble existence on an island where every repair is a struggle against the elements. But his efforts are Sisyphean. Life as a Barrøy on Barrøy remains precarious. Changes do occur in men’s and women’s roles, reflected in part by who gets a literal chair to sit on at meals, while world crises—a war, Sweden’s financial troubles—have unexpected impact. Yet the drama here occurs in small increments, season by season, following nature’s rhythm through deaths and births, moments of joy and deep sorrow. The translator’s decision to use roughly translated phrases in conversation—i.e., “Tha’s goen’ nohvar” for "You’re going nowhere")—slows the reading down at first but ends up drawing readers more deeply into the world of Barrøy and its prickly, intensely alive inhabitants.
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77196-319-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Biblioasis
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
A ghost story, a love story, a mystery—this seductive novel has it all.
A haunted house full of haunted people is the setting for this lively, moving tale.
When 15-year-old Sana Malek and her widowed father move from Johannesburg, South Africa, to Durban in 2014, they land in a once-glorious mansion overlooking the sea, now a ramshackle rooming house presided over by a kindly old man called Doctor. Sana is familiar with ghosts, having been haunted all her life by the spiteful ghost of her previously conjoined twin sister, who died soon after they were separated. So she recognizes that the house teems with them. She forms tentative bonds with some of the place’s corporeal residents, a group of contentious older women. But she’s more interested in the departed, and she begins to unravel their stories, especially when she finds a long-locked bedroom with diaries and photos that are evidence of a couple in love. In 1919, we learn in the book’s second timeline, a dashing, wealthy young Muslim man named Akbar Ali Khan left his village in Gujarat. Eventually he settled in Durban, following an arranged marriage in India with his modern Anglophile wife, Jahanara Begum. They have a son and daughter, but their marriage never warms, despite the spectacular house and gardens he builds for them. Then he does fall in love, with a Tamil girl hired to work in his sugar factory. Meena rejects him, but he takes her as another wife anyway, patiently winning her over until their love catches fire. Akbar isn’t the only one in love with Meena; the djinn of the title, an ancient creature weary of the world, is enchanted. But Jahanara’s bitter jealousy of Meena will lead them all to a terrible fate. Almost a century later, Sana will put it all together—but will that bring catastrophe? Khan’s prose is lush and lovely, her pacing skillful, and she successfully weaves a complex plot with a large cast.
A ghost story, a love story, a mystery—this seductive novel has it all.Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2024
ISBN: 9780593653456
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2023
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