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THE DARK

Name: THE DARK
Author: Sergio Chejfec
ISBN: 978-1-934824-43-6

by Sergio Chejfec ; translated by Heather Cleary ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 15, 2013

A wistful, winding contemplation of that long dark night of the soul.

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In this novel from Chejfec (The Planets, 2012, etc.), originally published in 2000 in the author's native Argentina, a man remembers his relationship with a factory worker whose life was different from his own.

Readers will find here a meditation on the working class, the circle of life and the pitch blackness of night. The nameless narrator tells the story as a remembrance, albeit one that haunts him. “It has always unsettled me that geography does not change with time, with the changes that take place within it, within us,” Chejfec begins. Every day, this writer sees a woman, Delia, get off a bus at the street corner near his home. Gradually, the pair begin to take long walks through the wastelands of the slums, as Chejfec lays out the geography of their nocturnal promenades, both literal and emotional. They become lovers locked in a secret embrace. However, the writer’s interest in Delia also extends to her work in a local factory. Coming from such a distinctly different social class from her intellectual paramour, she seems very alien to him, and he ruminates at length about the affect her work has on her, her relationships with co-workers and so on. There is much talk of the titular dark along the way. “Once there, I saw the silence before I saw the dark: a false murmur floated across the air, a hollow reverberation that came from nowhere in particular, but rather from the night as black as pitch,” Chejfec writes. This is a story that remains determinedly unresolved, as the writer mourns his relationship with Delia without saying what transpired. Readers who dare to navigate Chejfec’s intellectual labyrinth may find themselves mystified.

A wistful, winding contemplation of that long dark night of the soul.

Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2013

ISBN: 978-1-934824-43-6

Page Count: 143

Publisher: Open Letter

Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2013

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE INCOMPLETES
by Sergio Chejfec ; translated by Heather Cleary

- BOOK REVIEW
MY TWO WORLDS
by Sergio Chejfec translated by Margaret B. Carsom

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

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Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.

The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.