Shortlisted for the 2013 RSL Ondaatje Prize.
A sharp, clever, violent novel spanning the transition of South Africa from apartheid through Truth and Reconciliation to the present as seen by three characters living in those traumatic times. Pacey, it grips attention as it juggles time and person, old and new country and left me deeply saddened by the descriptions of South Africa today and the need for so much personal security.
Click here to see Patrick Flanery's new book, Fallen Land, due out in hardback on 1 May 2013.
The Lovereading view...
This is a very confident debut novel that manages to be literary yet a page-turner at the same time. The author has said that he is influenced by the award winning writer and anyone who has read Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin will find echoes of it in his complex interwoven plot and themes of confronting your past. Interestingly, however, Flanery has said he didn’t read The Blind Assassin until a few months after finishing Absolution. Anecdotes aside this story, set in South Africa, of two novelists sharing a past and one writing the biography of the other is compelling and captivating.
Longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award 2012.
FROM ARTICLE IN GUARDIAN 26TH NOV 2012. AUTHOR FAVOURITES OF 2012:
A S Byatt - 'Patrick Flanery's Absolution (Atlantic) is a wonderfully constructed and gripping novel about betrayal and shadows in South Africa.'
| Primary Genre | Modern and Contemporary Fiction |
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Closing date: 04/07/2026
In her garden, ensconced in the lush vegetation of the Western Cape, Clare Wald, world-renowned author, mother, critic, takes up her pen and confronts her life. Sam Leroux has returned to South Africa to embark upon a project that will establish his reputation - he is to write Clare's biography. But how honest is she prepared to be? Was she complicit in crimes lurking in South Africa's past; is she an accomplice or a victim? Are her crimes against her family real or imagined? As Sam and Clare turn over the events of her life, she begins to seek reconciliation, absolution. But in the stories she weaves and the truth just below the surface of her shimmering prose, lie Sam's own ghosts. Absolution shines light on contemporary South Africa and the long dark shadow of Apartheid, the elusive nature of truth and self-perception and the mysterious alchemy of the creative process. It is a debut of extraordinary strength and power.
Absolution features in the following genres: Modern and Contemporary Fiction, Debut Books of the Month, Family Drama, Book Club Recommendations, eBooks of the Month, General Fiction, Fiction, Recommendations, Romance / Relationship Stories
Absolution is available in Paperback, Ebook, Hardback
Absolution was written by Patrick Flanery and published by Atlantic Books
Absolution has 389 pages
£8.09
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