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Indlæser... Shameaf Melanie Finn
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'Finn has a light, deft touch as a writer, but the images she conjures up are so subversively creepy they haunt you for days' Spectator, Best Books of the Year 'Arresting - Finn conjures up Africa perfectly' Margaret Forster 'A brilliantly written account of a soul in torment and the way she is pursued by her own fate. Finn evokes the darkness and light of Africa with the same sureness that she calls forth the brightness and shadow of the human heart' Tim Lott 'Haunting and atmospheric - I was completely hooked' Leila Aboulela 'Melanie Finn's second novel lives up to the promise of her first. Shame pulls off the feat of being both chilling and redemptive. She explores vast themes - the solitude of bereavement, the eternal nature of maternal love, the irony of fate - with a light, deft touch.' Michela Wrong, author of It's Our Turn to Eat and Borderlines REDEMPTION IS A FOREIGN COUNTRY - or so Pilgrim Jones hopes as she looks up at a departures board and takes the first flight. She is running away; from her failed marriage and from the carnage she has caused in a small Swiss village. Pilgrim alights on the edge of Africa. Over confessions and strong gin, she is lured into a world of mercenaries and philanthropists, delusional heroes and witchdoctors in polyester suits. Here, in a land where fireflies light the sky, anything - even redemption - seems possible. But can she come to terms with her past before the past catches up with her? No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Indlæser... GenrerMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyVurderingGennemsnit:
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(SPOILERS AHEAD!!) The build-up is straight forward but o so crafty – we first listen to Pilgrim, a stunning American divorcee, who accidentally hits and kills three young children at a bus stand in a small Swiss town with her car. Her narrative alternates between Arnau, Swiss, and two places in Tanzania where she flees after the enquiry has been concluded. In a remote place, Pilgrim tries to repent, finding solace in the make-do attitude of Dorothea, the bereft Tanzanian nurse running a clinic without medicine. Pilgrim also has some interactions with Martin the blunt mercenary, who kind of fancies her. Next a mysterious bag with body parts is found and Pilgrium takes it upon her to deal with the bad, since as a mzungu she is inure to its charms. She travels to the coast taking the bag, which she dumps in some cave. Pilgrim’s narrative ends with a mysterious guest arriving at her ramshackle home in Tanga, Tanzania, Pilgrim willingly letting him fold a plastic bag over her head and tidying that up. Presumably nothing is left for Pilgrim, but to die. But then we switch to Detective Chief Inspector Strebel (one of the heroes of the book). Strebel has fallen in love with Pilgrim through an unprofessional move one night. He knows he has been misbehaving (like a 6 year old), but his heart has been touched and there seems to be no way back despite his stoic efforts to revert to his dull but predictable marriage. When the father of one of the deceased kids is found missing, he smells a rat, and the trail leads him to Tanga. But he arrives just one day too late… The inevitable has happened. After some fruitless attempts to trace Pilgrim through Harry (a British bar fly at the club in Tanga) and Gloria (an American do-gooder and friend of Pilgrim), the corpse of the father surfaces and Strebel is the witness who confirms his identity. Strebel returns to his safe life, a changed man, knowing in his heart that Pilgrim lives. And that’s where Harry, the utterly loveable barfly picks up – he is tipped off by one of his ‘ghosts’ (victims of a terrible flying accident he caused somewhere in Africa) and arrives just in time to save Pilgrim from asphyxiation and accompany the Swiss father on his way to Heaven (he slit his wrists under the shower). Next Harry phones Gloria, who has lost her son earlier in life and recognized the Swiss father as a soul mate. Gloria takes care of his corpse. Harry takes Pilgrim to safety. The book ends with the voices of Dorothea who begets the land rover of Harry and uses it to visit her lost sons in neighbouring Kenya (they were taken there by her abusive ex-husband) and the voice of Martin Martins the creepy mercenary who Pilgrim met earlier in the remote place near lake Victoria. Martin and his mate Franco are on an assignment somewhere in Congo (?). They stumble on a group of rebels, and through a miraculous act manage to escape, but not for long. After days in the jungle, they arrive at an old missionary post, where Pilgrim is acting like an avenging angel (nun) for orphaned children. There is a brief exchange about why Pilgrim opted to do this work and then the rebels arrive. Pilgrim has been dead for a long time already, but now she chooses to go down a heroine, and so does Martin.
So what wins? Revenge or redemption? Redemption, but at the cost of one’s life. This novel will work on you for days after and its magnificence grows with each day. ( )