Edge of Eden [Hardcover]

Helen Benedict (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2009

“Not since Lord of the Flies has a novelist written with such perceptiveness about the potential for harm that lurks within the innocence of childhood.”—Paula Sharp, author of Crows over a Wheatfield

"A wonderful novel and a true page-turner, a vivid story."—Joan Silber, author of The Size of the World

“Reminiscent of Evelyn Waugh in its biting satire and Somerset Maugham. . . . A book that both moved and surprised me until the very last word.”—Mary Morris, author of Revenge

In 1960, when her husband, Rupert, a British diplomat, is posted to the remote Seychelle Islands in the Indian Ocean, Penelope is less than thrilled. But she never imagined the danger that awaited her family there. Her sun-kissed children run barefoot on the beach and become enraptured by the ancient magic, or grigri, in the tropical colonial outpost. Rupert, meanwhile, falls under the spell of a local beauty who won’t stop until she gets what she wants.

Desperate to save her marriage, Penelope turns to black magic, exposing her family to the island’s sinister underbelly. Ultimately, Penny and her family suffer unimaginable casualties, rendering their lives profoundly and forever changed. Helen Benedict’s acerbic wit and lush descriptions serve up a page-turner brimming with jealousy, sex, and witchcraft in a darkly exotic Eden.

Helen Benedict, a Columbia University professor, has written four previous novels, five nonfiction books, and a play. Her novels have received citations for best book of the year from the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago and New York public libraries.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Benedict (The Lonely Soldier) chronicles a year in the life of a foolish but surprisingly sympathetic British family that relocates to the equatorial paradise of the Seychelles, located between India and Africa. In 1960, Rupert Weston accepts a post in the remote British colony without consulting his wife, Penelope, and his decision isn't well received. Trying to adjust to life on the island chain, Penelope turns to Marguerite, the family's kind and trustworthy local servant, for help with daughters Zara and Chloe. She soon realizes that the Seychelles are a dumping ground for incipient failures and their wives, who turn to alcohol and adultery for entertainment. Weak, malleable Rupert is soon seduced by the cunning Creole Joelle Lagrenade, but Penelope won't give up her husband without a fight. As the children run feral, Penelope asks Marguerite to show her grigri, Seychelles magic. She consults local witchdoctor Monsieur Adonis, while Joelle turns to Madame Hélène, a fortuneteller, and their combined magical efforts culminate in near tragedy and certain loss. An armchair traveler's delight, Benedict's novel is an amusingly poignant look at the British abroad in the spirit of Evelyn Waugh. (Nov.)
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Review

An armchair traveler's delight, Benedict's novel is an amusingly poignant look at the British abroad in the spirit of Evelyn Waugh. --Publishers Weekly, September 28, 2009

Benedict, an author of both fiction and nonfiction (Sailor's Wife; Virgin or Vamp), offers distinctive cross-cultural insights as well as a cadre of satiric and fascinating characters, and the result is a story that is both touching and humorous. Highly recommended. --Library Journal, November 1, 2009

Benedict offers an engaging, lush portrait of envy, desire, and the insatiable lure of the exotic and unknown. --Booklist, October 15, 2009

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Soho Press; First Edition. 1 in number line edition (November 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1569476020
• ISBN-13: 978-1569476024
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,733,924 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Helen Benedict (www.helenbenedict.com) is the author of six novels, five books of nonfiction and a play. Her latest novel,"Sand Queen," will be out in August, 2011 from Soho Press.

Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Robert Olen Butler said about the book, "Every war eventually yields works of art which transcend politics and history and illuminate our shared humanity. Helen Benedict's brilliant new novel has done just that with this century's American war in Iraq. Sand Queen is an important book by one our finest literary artists."

"Sand Queen" is based on Benedict's research for her most recent nonfiction book, "The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq" (Beacon Press, 2009 and 2010). She won three major awards for that book and her articles on soldiers: The 2010 Exceptional Merit in Media Award from the National Women's Political Caucus, The Ken Book Award from the National Alliance on Mental Illness for 2010, and the 2008 James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism.

Benedict has also testified twice to Congress on behalf of women in the military. She is a professor of journalism at Columbia University.

Further early praise for "Sand Queen":

"Helen Benedict's compelling story provides an intimate picture of what it means to be a soldier, what it's like to live on the battlefield, and what the ethical choices are that our troops have had to make in Iraq. At times funny, at times grimly painful, Sand Queen offers a new chapter in contemporary American history." -- Roxana Robinson, author of Cost

"Anyone who claims to value the lives of our soldiers should read this powerful, harrowing, and revelatory novel." -- Valerie Martin, author of The Confessions of Edward Day and Trespass

Benedict's earlier novels are The Edge of Eden, The Opposite of Love, The Sailor's Wife, Bad Angel, and A World Like This. The Los Angeles Times and New York and Chicago Public Libraries have named her novels best books of the year, and she has received fellowships from Yaddo, MacDowell, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Freedom Forum.

Her nonfiction includes Virgin or Vamp: How the Press Covers Sex Crimes, Portraits in Print and Recovery: How to Survive Sexual Assault.

Helen Benedict's other articles and essays have appeared in the New York Times Book Review, the Washington Post, Glamour, The Women's Review of Books, and in many other magazines. She has been published in many countries and is included in several anthologies. www.helenbenedict.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommended, November 1, 2009

By 

Helen Benedict - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Edge of Eden (Hardcover)

THE LIBRARY JOURNAL REVIEWER WRITES:

In the 1960s, a government transfer brings the Weston family from Britain to the Seychelles, beautiful islands in the western Indian Ocean whose inhabitants speak French Creole and whose culture leans intensely on a belief in black magic. Unfortunately for Rupert and Penelope, what had been a happy marriage begins to falter in this exotic environment, even as daughters Zara and Chloe begin to flourish. In particular, eight-year-old Zara is enamored of the local witchcraft, with its reliance on spells and curses. When bright and spunky Penelope begins to realize that Rupert is seeing another woman, she sinks further into despair. Disliking her local British compatriots, she confides in Marguerite, her wise, shrewd Seychellois housekeeper, who also acts as the children's nana, and befriends an interesting American couple there to do research. Verdict Benedict, an author of both fiction and nonfiction (Sailor's Wife; Virgin or Vamp), offers distinctive cross-cultural insights as well as a cadre of satiric and fascinating characters, and the result is a story that is both touching and humorous. Highly recommended.--Maureen Neville, Trenton P.L., NJ

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "If someone puts grigri on you, it will work.", October 18, 2009

By 

Luan Gaines "luansos" (Dana Point, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Edge of Eden (Hardcover)

As their ship draws near the Seychelles Islands in 1960, husband and wife Rupert and Penelope Weston have different expectations, their family in trouble long before setting foot on an island paradise once a hub of the slave trade, now the awkward stepchild of British colonialism. Rupert is a bureaucrat looking forward to his new posting; Penelope is resentful, unwilling to transplant their daughters, Zara, eight, and Chloe, three, homesick for London even as the lush vegetation of the islands beckon. Germinating on the long voyage, this conflict blooms once the Weston's arrive in their new home. The children run wild, unkempt and unwashed, Rupert consumed by work, Penelope sinking into apathy, barely able to leave her room, moody and desperate.

The dark-skinned, impish Zara sees everything as an adventure, shadowing the servants, learning about island superstitions and grigri, concocting her own spells. Benedict tracks the fault line through this family with stunning clarity in the children's behavior, Zara's fascination with spells and her penchant for torturing Chloe, the sweet child with dimples and blonde curls who has already fallen through the cracks of her parent's attention. Zara is increasingly worried about the "devil worm" that has taken over Penelope's personality, so worried about her mother that she fails to notice that her father comes home less and less frequently. This is a place where spells make powerful magic, where lovers can be bound to one another and straying husbands returned, Rupert's secretary, Joelle, already actively seducing him away from Penelope, determined to replace his worthless wife. And why not? Joelle deserves the luxuries Penelope enjoys.

The landscape is ominous, lush with beauty and tragic history, filled with superstition and the natives' distrust of the English, deeply religious yet unshakably devoted to arcane superstitions for protection from evil. The Weston's have no chance, each adult absorbed in his own needs, Zara frantically gathering information for powerful spells to control her environment. It is not surprising, then, when an innocent becomes the victim of the jealousy of women, when potent medicine falls into the wrong hands and the foolishness of adults comes crashing down in tragedy. Benedict describes it all, from the brewing antagonism between husband and wife to the jealousy of Rupert's lover to the carelessness of a nanny who has a new man on her mind and no eyes for the children in her care. On the islands, rules are lax, passion triumphs over logic and innocents are lost along the way. Paradise is bountiful and fecund, noisy with the demands of its inhabitants. Moments slide by, opportunities missed, loved ones lost as paradise claims its price. Luan Gaines/ 2009.

4.0 out of 5 stars intriguing historical thriller, November 7, 2009

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Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Edge of Eden (Hardcover)

In 1960, the Colonial Office informs lowest tier British diplomat Rupert that he is being assigned to the French Creole speaking Seychelle Islands in the Indian Ocean. His wife Penelope is outraged with the assignment's location and Rupert's blithely ordering her that she and their two daughters accompany him. On the sea voyage to the isolated Crown Colony, Penelope becomes sea sick while Rupert flirts with another female so ignores his two children as the eight year old Zara bullies her three years old sibling.

Upon reaching their destination, Penelope feels like an outsider even with her family, but not with the Colonial Governor. Her children take to the island "paradise" as if they lived there all their lives. Rupert focuses more on his native secretary Joelle instead of the economics report he is to develop or his family. When the marriage collapses, Zara turns to the local witch doctors for a love spell to reunite her family while now pregnant Joelle turns to the same grigri magical practitioners to send Penelope back to England without her Rupert. Desperate to save her marriage and family, Penelope also pleads with the black magical users for help.

This is an intriguing historical thriller that readers will enjoy though wonder what the three females see in Rupert, which is one of their two constants (the other being each turns to grigri), as the women's inspirational muses seem to change with each calamity. The story line is fast-paced while also hyperbolizing satire to make a point about clashing civilizations. THE EDGE OF EDEN is an engaging psychological suspense tale as the audience wonders who will be the last female standing on the Seychelles and will Rupert be at her side.

Harriet Klausner