In a novel that won Canada's distinguished Giller Prize, East Africanborn Vassanji (No New Land, p. 102) details a languorous pursuit of secrets hinted at in an old diary—a diary that becomes in the end a search for meaning in the investigator's own life. A product of the Asian settlements in East Africa from Kenya to South Africa, Vassanji is not only telling a story but recalling a way of life that has almost disappeared as Asians have increasingly left Africa. The tale begins in 1988, when Pius Fernandes, a retired schoolteacher of Indian birth, is handed an old diary by a former student. In it he finds not only a pastime but reminders of his own failures as a shy bachelor to accept love and friendship. The diary, found in a deserted storeroom, belonged to Sir Alfred Corbin, a British colonial officer who was sent in 1913 to administer an area in Kenya, near what was then German East Africa. Fernandes reads the diary, talks to those who knew some of the people referred to, and offers excerpts, possible interpretations of events, as well as accounts of his own life. In his entries, Corbin records impressions of the new country and of his relations with Asian shopkeepers and local Africans, but he seems—as Fernandes will later be—most obsessed with Mariamu, a beautiful Indian woman who becomes his servant. Mariamu is accused of being possessed; she is not a virgin when she marries Pipa, a merchant and later a spy; and Ali, the son she soon gives birth to, is suspiciously fair. The truth of Corbin's relationship with Mariamu is further complicated by Pipa's ambiguous espionage during the 191418 war. Ali, who immigrates to Britain, eventually meets Corbin; but Fernandes, failing to learn what the truth of Ali's parentage might be, accepts the fact that perhaps we can never know the past except incompletely, ``as incompletely as we know ourselves.'' Gracefully evocative of a distant time and place, but too coolly and carefully crafted to be fully absorbing.
Pub Date: Feb. 19, 1996
ISBN: 0-312-14083-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Picador
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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