Customer Reviews

Darwin's Wink: A Novel of Nature and Love

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This is a lovely, unusual novel. The writing is lush, the setting and characters complex, and the protagonist's work important. The ending seems quite realistic. For anyone, especially one who cares for endangered species and is drawn to the mystery of islands, this novel should hold one's interest straight through. Beautiful and imaginative.

Occasionally, a book comes along that truly surprises you. Initially, the exquisite cover art on DARWIN'S WINK drew me to it. Then a particularly enticing description of the plot hooked me even further. But just a few words into it, I was blissfully lost to the story. Alison Anderson choreographed this novel with poetic sentences. It overflows with thought-provoking passages and fresh, stimulating ideas. The flyleaf says this book is a novel of nature and love. I would add that it is also a novel of beauty and happiness --- and of sorrow and strength.

Fran, a divorced American naturalist on the down side of 40, struggles to keep the mourner bird population from extinction. The fragile existence on Egret Island, a mere half-mile off the coast of posh Mauritius, constantly challenges Fran's abilities. Her assistant, a man she cared too much for, met with a mysterious accident. Now, a young displaced Red Cross worker, Christian, has arrived to help in her conservation efforts. He comes hoping to heal the scars left by a horrific parting with a Serbian woman he once loved. War tore her from him, and now he works to find a way to forget, to find a way to go on.

Fran is working to heal her scars as well. She may be as much in danger of extinction as the bird she has pledged to protect. Despite a deceptive crusty exterior, she is soft inside. She opens her heart too easily, and it is broken too often. The things she loves frequently go away, leaving her with only bittersweet memories. But she does have memories, and she cherishes them, bringing them out at dusk to relive the joy they once brought her.

While these two souls are trying to find their own peace, at least one person is trying to drive them from the island. And their tactics are anything but gentle. Unfortunately --- for them --- they don't realize the dedication they are up against. Fran fervently believes in her work. "She accepts the inevitability of death but refuses the inevitability of extinction." Thus, she will fight with a fierce determination to combat island predators --- whether they be of the four-legged or the two-legged variety. And Christian discovers that he is afflicted with her passion.

Prepare to spend some time with this gem. It is not meant to be rushed through, not with writing this good. A lot is packed into its 272 pages. And, once you reach the end, I believe you will instantly want to start over again, just to have the pleasure of savoring the words anew.

--- Reviewed by Kate Ayers

Off the coast of Mauritius is a coral reef, Egret Island, twenty-five hectares of tropical vegetation. Following the Portuguese, Dutch, French and British, even the egrets vanish from this beleaguered place. Fran, a trained naturalist, comes to Egret Island via an independent foundation, her mission to return the island to its pre-human state, replacing plant and animal life, "the exotic with the endemic", restoring the natural habitat and possibly saving the mourner bird from extinction. The fiftyish woman is joined by a younger man, Christian, a Swiss by birth. Deeply scarred by his experiences with the International Committee of the Red Cross in Bosnia, Christian is seeking refuge from the harsh reality of war, "a bloody game of bullies and warlords, a slaughter."

Fran carries her own heartbreak, a love affair with Satish, a younger Tamil immigrant from India who knew the island well, his death still a potent grief. Christian's arrival has awakened Fran's feelings, his romance with a local girl a reminder that Satish is gone, as if Fran's relationship was only an island tale. Socially unacceptable, Fran and Satish's love was something they chose, accepting the challenges of such an affair. At this point in her life, Fran has crossed an invisible line, accepted solitude as a way of life, made stronger within the boundaries of self. Fran finds comfort in her position, having never mastered flirtatious games, removed from island society, safe from the entanglements that expose her vulnerabilities. Watching Christian in Satish's place, Fran hopes that their daily routines will offer this man an opportunity to recover, to regain his balance in the world. Drawn closer by the defining experiences of their lives, Fran and Christian share their stories. Writing in her journal, Fran realizes that anything can be changed in nature, an act of God, Darwin's wink: "What will I do now... my ordered little world is only an illusion of order, thwarted by biology."

Fran is a complex person, having weighed her loneliness and made peace with it, yet allowing herself to embrace Satish, and later, Christian. The years have given her a natural wisdom and compassion, withholding her own needs so that those of others can be met. She offers Christian the freedom to make choices without resorting to trickery or dishonesty. Even Christian realizes that this place and this woman are temporary, a brief respite before he reenters a brutal world with unfinished obligations. Yet Christian is acutely aware of Fran's strength, her unconditional acceptance of what life offers, even if happiness only comes in small measures. Anderson evokes a time and place made real and tactile by the species clinging to life and the wounded humans reaching to each other for comfort. The characters inhabit the novel, Fran, Christian, Asmita, the devious Razel, the lost Nermina and the ghost of Satish. Here passion blooms without interference, but the world waits; this temporary solace belongs to the moment, where old wrongs may be made right, nature tilted gently into balance, Fran and Christian planting the seeds of the future. Luan Gaines/ 2005.

Starts quiet and sort of stays that way which belies the strength of its voice and story which rings loud and clear -- the power, trauma, guilt and loss as each are worked upon. The tiny Maritian island in this book is a stripped down, bare essentials cosmos. Some will say it's a love story but it's no more nor less than a survival story, and that's beautifully sufficient and gorgeously written (though not over-written). Will be moving on, just as quickly as my feet can scurry to my local, to Anderson's earlier novel Hidden Latitudes. She seems to have a thing for Island novels; works for me!

I really loved this book !
While you get gripped into the suspense which has the two main characters strive to keep alive an endangered species of birds on an island near Mauritius working against an unknown enemy and learn slowly about their secrets wounds in a well constructed story that takes you back and forth between past - the war in Bosnia during which Christian was working for the red cross and lost his girlfriend- and present - the island where Fran suffered her own loss, you really dive into the serenity of this island and the beautiful and lyrical use of words by the writer. It is punctuated with pertinent and philosophical comments about life, survival and relationship.
You will not want to leave Fran and Christian when you reach the last page.

This is a beautiful, lyrical novel about love, life, death, and how people go on with their lives. Fran (American) is a 50ish ornithologist living on an island off the coast of Mauritius, in the Indian Ocean, trying to keep the mourner bird (an imaginary but evocatively named species) from extinction. Christian (Swiss) is a former aid worker in Bosnia who comes to work for Fran. Both Fran and Christian have lost loves (Fran's helper, Satish, was a Mauritian Hindu who died in a mysterious accident; Christian feels responsible for the loss of his Bosnian girlfriend). The story is constructed in an intricate and delicate weave of past, present, and possible future, as each character, and a web of secondary characters, reveals her or himself, layer by layer, but never being totally known, just as happens with real relationships. The end is much like real life, never wholly resolved, but always pulling you on to want more. I was so compelled and wrapped up in this fictional island that I hated to reach the end of the novel; I wanted it to go on and on, for I felt like Fran and Christian had become part of my life.

Anderson weaves a lyrical story that carves a niche in the reader's heart. The soaring loneliness and loss that the main characters harbor is stunning in the way it shapes their view of themselves and the world. The book has a peaceful, inevitable progression that flows like the natural seasons. There is a maturity and an innocence in this writing as Fran and Christian embark on a journey toward healing the huge emotional wounds they have sustained. Egret Island serves as a haven and a laboratory, allowing them to explore and experiment their way to a conclusion that is profound and believable.

Alison Anderson is among the finest literary stylists writing today, writing a carefully crafted lyrical prose which reminds me of Patrick O'Brian's best work in his Aubrey/Maturin saga. Her graceful writing is a poetic throwback to Jane Austen, with much Joycean self reflection thrown in, reminding me too of Andrea Barrett's elegant fictional prose on science and nature. I was quite taken with "Darwin's Wink" as I read through the opening pages, keeping a keen interest in the affairs of the two protagonists, Fran and Christian. To her credit, Anderson has fashioned a tale that I wish didn't end, but yet it did, with ample realism and poetic prose.

Fran is a fortyish American behavioral ecologist and ornithologist who has found sanctuary on Egret Island, a tiny island near its much larger neighbor, Mauritus, trying to save a rare bird from extinction. She also finds herself coping with the unexpected death of her assistant and lover, Salish, a Hindu Mauritian. Salish's replacement, Chris, a former Swiss Red Cross worker, has lost the love of his life, Nermina, a Muslim Bosnian Red Cross worker, he met while both were working in war-torn Bosnia in the mid 1990s. Unexpectedly, they find themselves drawn to each other while contending unknowingly with Mauritians opposed to their conservation work, and who were ultimately responsible for Salish's death.