LoveReading Says
LoveReading Says
A powerful novel centring on the unrest and eventual Civil War in Liberia. It concerns a left-wing extremist who gets caught up in a life too big for her to handle. It is one of those hard-hitting books that stays with you long after you have finished it.
Similar this month: None but try Kazuo Ishiguro or Joan Brady.
Comparison: J M Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer, André Brink.
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Sarah Broadhurst
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The Darling Synopsis
Hannah Musgrave is on the run: from her adoring parents, her many lovers, even from herself. As a young woman she worked for a Boston terrorist group which has put her on the FBI’s most wanted list, forcing her to flee to Liberia in West Africa. There she marries an ambitious young politician and settles down. But Hannah can never quite bridge the differences between herself and her African husband. Liberia is a country on the verge of explosion and the threat of civil war is ever present. The violent events that follow touch everyone close to Hannah and, once again, she has to flee. This time, though, the past won’t disappear.
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Press Reviews
Russell Banks Press Reviews
Urgent, passionate, compelling … it deserves to stand beside Conrad and Greene’ Guardian
‘His are big novels, with daring, sweep and depth. In The Darling, he is working at full strength, and readers are in his debt’ Washington Post
‘With his trademark painterly consideration, Banks instills the lush landscape of war-torn Liberia and the bleak upstate farm (where Hannah grows organic vegetables and raises free-range chickens) with a brilliant intensity … The Darling is a remarkable leap into the consciousness of a troubled mind’ Los Angeles Times
‘A satisfying, intensely moving tale. Unlike Hannah, Banks runs away from nothing. Those who despair of the modern novel, who wail that “they just don’t write books like they used to”, should read him’ Glasgow Herald
Author
About Russell Banks
Russell Banks is the critically acclaimed author of Cloudsplitter, The Sweet Hereafter (the film by Atom Egoyan won the Grand Prix and International Critics Prize at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival), Rule of the Bone and Continental Drift, amongst others. A winner of numerous fellowships and prizes, he writes regularly for Vanity Fair, The New York Times Book Review, Esquire, and Harper’s. Russell Banks currently lives in upstate New York.
Photograph © Emma Dodge Hanson
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