Borderline [Mass Market Paperback]

Janette Turner Hospital (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1987

Three people, strangers to one another, arrive at a border crossing. Felicity, an American gallery owner, Gus, a Canadian salesman, and a refugee from El Salvador. Their lives become dangerously and inextricably linked.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

A refrigerated meat truck is stopped by immigration officials at the Canadian border. Inside, slowly freezing to death, are a dozen desperate Salvadorian refugees. In the confusion that follows, two onlookersone the owner of an art gallery, the other a hard-drinking insurance salesmanimpulsively smuggle one of the aliens into Canada. From that moment on, all three find themselves in a Hitchcockian world of conspirators, informers, spies, and assassins. Borderline is both topical and timeless. Hospital's allusive prose examines the concept of sanctuary from the political and the psychological point of view simultaneously, yet never ignores the thriller format. Recommended for most fiction collections. (Hospital also wrote The Ivory Swing and The Tiger in the Tiger Pit. ) Edward B. St. John, Loyola Marymount Univ. Lib., Los Angeles
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback
• Publisher: Bantam (January 1, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553262882
• ISBN-13: 978-0553262889
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,853,696 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I loved this book. Haunting and engrossing., January 9, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Borderline (Mass Market Paperback)

This was the first Turner Hospital Book I read, and it had me from the first page. The delightful style of writing as well as the almost detective style plot both kept me reading until it was done. In the middle of my exam period at uni, I could do nothing else!

Turner Hospital's repetitive theme of displacement is found again here in the character of Felicity and her constant movement from childhood onward. Very topical in today's "global village" in which many of us find ourselves not sure where we belong, after living in and becoming attached to many different places, this theme is accessible but not laboured.

Highly recommended.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Ambitious, sometimes successful, December 22, 2003

By 

algo41 "algo41" (philadelphia, pa United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Borderline (Paperback)

While not very long, this is a pretty ambitious book. It deals with political morality and individual responsibility. It speaks in the voice of several characters, and uses such literary devices as a narrator who stops to talk to the reader, acknowledges bias, and speculates on the truth of his story. At times it succeeds, but overall it is not nearly so good as it might be. The plot reminds me of an episode of X-files, and I am not a big fan: sinister but not really credible forces at work. The one character Turner is really successful with is a well meaning, lower middle class insurance agent given to adultery and alchoholism.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Magical, scary, disturbing, haunting., April 17, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Borderline: 2 (Hardcover)

READ SLOW - you'll think you'll never get into this one but after 50 pages or so you'll find yourself swept along. Hard to describe the feelings this story evokes - like you've seen something you were not supposed to and you've been changed. This author has tremendous talent