Sabina Murray0.0
From an acclaimed young author of Filipino background comes this history told through individual lives. The Caprices revolves around the Pacific Campaign of World War II. In the wreckage of bombed cities and overcrowded prison camps, there were no winners and no conquerors, and no nation truly triumphed.
Set in Southeast Asia, Australia, and the United States, these stories bring to life ordinary people who must rely on extraordinary measures of faith and imagination. In "Order of Precedence," an Indian officer starving to death in a prison camp remembers playing polo during his days in India. In "Folly," the last days of Amelia Earhart are imagined as the Japanese prepare for war. In "Colossus," an American veteran in his eighties recalls the Japanese invasion of the Philippines and the infamous death march of 1941.
With lyrical prose and searing insight, Sabina Murray brings to light a complex cast of characters. Eloquent, artful, and brimming with raw emotion, these tales capture the gross injustices of war as well as the consequences of survival and the memories that follow. In stories that tell as much about the fluid nature of time as they do about the ghosts that haunt survivors, Sabina Murray establishes herself as a passionate and wise voice.
Peter Cameron0.0 This startling, beautiful novel set in South America explores the mysterious concepts of love and home. Omar has won an award to write the authorised biography of a celebrated yet obscure writer, Jules Gund, author of The Gondola. It only remains for him to obtain permission from Gund's literary executors: his widow, his mistress and his brother. Their lives still revolve around Ochos Rios, a dilapidated mansion in Uruguay that Gund's parents built after fleeing Nazi Germany. The three cannot agree to approve the work -- although Adam Gund feels sure this will not stop Omar, because 'biographers are clever, vindictive, ruthless people.' If Omar cannot reverse the executors' decision, he will lose his award, his job and, perhaps, his redoubtable girlfriend. Not allowing himself time for reflection, Omar acts against instinct and flies to Uruguay. There, he disturbs the uneasy intimacy of the world Gund has left behind and changes it forever.
Victor LaValle0.0 Anthony James weighs 315 pounds, is possibly schizophrenic, and he’s just been kicked out of college. He’s rescued by his mother, sister, and grandmother, but they may not be altogether sane themselves. Living in the basement of their home in Queens, New York, Anthony is armed with nothing but wicked sarcasm and a few well-cut suits. He intends to make horror movies but takes the jobs he can handle, cleaning homes and factories, and keeps crossing paths with a Japanese political prisoner, a mysterious loan shark named Ishkabibble, and packs of feral dogs. When his invincible 13-year old sister enters yet another beauty pageant—this one for virgins—the combustible Jameses pile into their car and head South for the competition.
Will Anthony’s family stick together or explode? With electrifying prose, LaValle ushers us into four troubled but very funny lives.
Gilbert Sorrentino0.0 In this superb novel composed of fragments of memory, Gilbert Sorrentino captures the unconventional nuances of a conventional world. A masterful collage of events is evocatively chained together by secrets and hidden truths that are almost accidentally revealed. Each episode, affectingly textured with penetrating detail, ferrets out the gristle and unconventional beauty found in the voices of the working-class inhabitants from an irretrievable, golden age Brooklyn.
