Customer Reviews

Forgive Me

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Ward's ambitious third novel is by far my favorite. Just as in her previous books, Ward has an amazing ability to tackle tough topics with an effortless writing style. As always, her ability to write different voices is completely on target. In particular, I found the character of Nadine extremely compelling; I was fascinated by her simultaneous toughness and vulnerability. And the plot, well, it blew me away. Enjoy this book - it's an incredible read!

Nadine Morgan, the character at the heart of Amanda Eyre Ward's latest novel "Forgive Me," is not a likeable protagonist--but that's the whole point. This is a book about forgiveness. Before redemption can occur, the main character has to live through, and eventually realize the extent of her wrongdoings. Readers are able take a fictional journey with her during this process. Along the way, we get to know a woman with a seriously flawed moral compass--a woman who consistently gets into situations in which she walks all over people's innermost feelings. Eventually, we arrive with her at her moment of self-discovery--the point in her life when she begins to see the errors of her ways and starts to imagine a path toward redemption.

This is a very interesting journey, and obviously it is one that most people would never make on their own. Thankfully, we have fiction to take us there!

We come into Nadine's life when she is 35 years old. She is already a successful career journalist who specializes in getting the tough stories in the bloodiest and most dangerous corners of the world. The book starts near Mexico City, where Nadine is beaten to within an inch of her life by drug lords. The next thing she knows, she is in her hometown, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, being cared for by her father and his live-in girlfriend. She panics and wants out immediately. She's an adrenaline junkie missing out on whole world of action-packed news stories. For Nadine, Woods Hole might as well be Hell. She can't stand living with her father and his companion. She starts to detest her childhood best friend for her simple homemaker's life. Out of desperation, more than anything else, Nadine has an affair with Hank, the doctor who is taking care of her. He ends up falling in love with her. But she abandons him, and all the other loving people in Woods Hole that care so much about her. She does this so easily and thoughtlessly it takes your breath away. Before you know it, Nadine is flying off to South Africa to follow a developing page-one news story.

The rest of the novel deals with two fast-paced interlocking stories: one full of some of the worst that the world can offer in manipulation, betrayal, and physical violence, the other full of childhood innocence. The juxtaposition and symbiosis of these two completely antithetical storylines creates enormous tension. It helps that the reader is allowed to keep one foot in a world of innocent childhood normalcy, while the other is uncomfortably dangling in an unsavory and violent world most of us would rather know as little about as possible.

In South Africa, Nadine tries to get the best angle possible on a big international news article about two grieving American parents returning to South Africa to fight against amnesty for their son's killers. It's been ten years since a mob of black South African teenagers murdered their son and the perpetrators were sent to jail. At the time, it was at the height of Apartheid. Ironically, the young American had come to South Africa to fight against Apartheid, but he was killed merely because he was white and in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The secondary storyline consists of excerpts from a journal entitled "Nantucket to Stardom." It is best not to reveal too much about this journal, even though it takes up a considerable portion of the novel's overall content. Trust that this second storyline is important, and don't overlook the details. All will make sense in the end.

Don't read this novel if you hope to gain insight into the history of Apartheid. This novel will tell you (perhaps more than you may want to know) about routine atrocities that were committed during that time, but Ward will not give you any insight into the political environment that surrounded that era. Ward never tarries from her focus relentlessly pushing the plot forward.

What Ward does best here is character development. In this book, the author creates Nadine Morgan, a completely believable antiheroine. Then, the author has the skill to artfully and carefully redeem her.

Don't expect everything to be tied together neatly at the end. Ward loves to leave her readers with loose ends to ponder. She wants her readers to be thinking about her books long after they finish the last page. Has Nadine truly been redeemed? Can she truly change her basic nature? What will become of her in the years ahead? I like that--an author demanding the participation of the reader after the novel is completed. I will definitely continue to look for more work by this author in the future.

Ms. Ward has written an interesting story about Nadine Morgan, a journalist who has traveled the world in search of the next big story, making sure nothing and no one ties her down. After being badly beaten while in search of a story in Mexico, she returns to Cape Cod to the home of her father and his girlfriend. Nadine's mother died when she was quite young and she was raised by a father who dealth with his grief by pouring himself into his work. While recovering on Cape Cod, her meets Dr. Duarte who is taking care of her injuries. There is a mutual attraction between the two. But first Nadine feels she must return to South Africa where she left 10 years ago following a tragedy. She is going to South Africa to attend the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings regarding the death of Jason Irving, a teacher from Cape Cod. Jason's parents are flying to South Africa to attend the TRC and Nadine is determined to interview them.

This story is told in the present (mid 1990's) and in flashbacks, along with interesting entries from a journal. I am embarrassed to admit that before this book I had read nothing about apartheid. Ms. Ward tells in gripping details some of the atrocities carried out by both sides, atrocities I will not soon forget. Overall I thought this was a good book. The story was interesting. I felt the characters were well drawn and fully developed. And I particularly liked the way the author pulled everything together in the end, along with a surprise I did not see coming. I would recommend this book to family and friends.

Amanda Ward's Forgive Me starts with a bang (or a punch, to be more precise); it grabbed me by the end of its spare and haunting three-page chapter one and never let up. Through Nadine Morgan, a journalist who returns to post-apartheid South Africa, drawn by the ghosts of her own past as well as those of the country's history, Ward delivers a story about relationships and motherhood and love, and about the temptation to forget and the redemption of remembering. A compelling, thought-provoking read!

Normally, I can figure out a twist in a story pretty quickly. In fact, I kind of annoy myself with this ability as it means I rarely get surprised.

Well color me surprised. Ward totally got me on this one. And I can't tell you how happy it made me.

In addition, the book was so well written. Flashbacks aren't an easy thing for a reader to keep up with sometimes, but Ward shows a real talent at keeping the reader engaged and on track. Ward's third book does not disappoint.

Amanda does it again! Her writing is so fluid and fun to read that she takes you quite by surprise when you realize the book is about so much more than she originally lets on. Not to give anything away, but this book is especially for all the independent and adventurous women out there who have been amazed and delighted by the unexpected joys of motherhood. Grab this book and wait for a rainy day -- its very, very hard to put down.

Following on the heels of her highly successful novels How To Be Lost and Sleep Toward Heaven, Amanda Eyre Ward again explores timeless questions by tracing the journey of an unforgettable protagonist and placing her in contemporary settings.

With an apartment in the Associated Press compound in Mexico City, which she hasn't seen in a month, Nadine Morgan is in pursuit of another story. After consulting her topographic map she drives toward a small village. She is alone, and has told no one where she is going. Stopping to ask directions she is confronted by a group of men who stare, hesitating only briefly before a tall man in a Cookie Monster T-shirt reaches into her car. In seconds the others are beating her, pounding her stomach, her rib cage. She is left to die in a ditch.

It's understood that Nadine is tough, a hard nosed news hawk who will do anything, go anywhere for the all important story. Steeliness is accepted, but where is her sense? To drive into unknown terrain alone with no one knowing her whereabouts?

Nonetheless, the next time she is fully aware she's at home in Woods Hole being tended to by her father and his girlfriend. She has a brief relationship with the doctor who sees to her, but what is love compared to a big story?

As the narrative switches back and forth in time and place, we read that Nadine took her father to the Oyster Bar to tell him of her plan: "So I've decided," said Nadine. "I'm going to Cape Town." "Cape Town?" "I'll be freelancing, of course, but maybe it'll lead to a job with the AP, or the Times. People are fighting the pass laws, standing up to the government. Remember that kid from Nantucket? Jason Irving? He was killed outside Cape Town last month. Everything is changing in South Africa. There's so much to write about." Jim sighed. "That kid from Nantucket," he said. "Poor kid comes home in a coffin. This is your role model?"

Nadine didn't find her death in Cape Town - what she found was heartbreak. Her lover, Maxim, a successful photographer, was killed while at the site of a gun battle, and Jason Irving, an American teacher, was killed by a young mob. Tragedy is all she discovered in Cape Town.

Now, following Mexico it has been years since her first visit to Cape Town, and one of Jason's killers is scheduled for an amnesty hearing. Jason's parents are, understandably, furious, and fly to Cape Town to battle for justice for their son. Nadine also returns to South Africa, hoping to interview the parents. However, she had not considered what her feelings might be for the mother of one of the killers.

Amanda Eyre Ward is a crafty author - she doesn't answer questions but tells a disquieting story, leaving it to the listener to ponder the age old questions of forgiveness and redemption.

- Gail Cooke

I was attracted to Ward's novel because it is partially set in South Africa, I country I visited for the first time a little over a year ago. Perhaps all of the South Africa references colored my judgment in a positive way, but I loved this book. The protagonist, Nadine (named after Nadine Gordimer) is not a particularly sympathetic character, yet she is fully realized and I found myself able to relate to her, even if I didn't always agree with her choices. Ward avoids moralizing on the sticky competition between career and family, leaving enough thought space for readers to insert their own opinions and desires on the topic as they read. Ward's prose is Spartan at times, yet never ungraceful, and she possesses the enviable skill of managing to draw in readers' emotions without leading (or telling) readers how to feel. Nadine is as flawed and real as any of us, and this makes "Forgive Me" an engrossing, compelling, and ultimately touching read.

I thought the Nadine character was kind of stupid (although she made it into Harvard, of course, the gold standard for everything fictional in our society--if you want readers to perceive a character who is brilliant!), and it takes a life-changing situation for her to see the light. While I did enjoy this book, it's not the best book ever written about a careerist woman and the choices (good and bad) that she makes.

I was a little frustrated by the Nadine character, and she reminded me of a lot of women I know in my life who are running, no, galloping at hyper-speed away from themselves, to the arena of cutthroat ambition where running at hyper-speed is accepted and stabbing colleagues in the back is totally acceptable, not to mention slutty behavior!

Real relationships, intimacy with another being of our human race, takes time. Time that Nadine does not have. I felt like the Disney-ish trauma of growing up without a mother does not qualify her for her inane choices. (Lead Disney girl characters never have a living mom, therefore creating sympathy for the character right off the bat). Although I will never know the trauma of growing without a mom.

Nadine's dad is a non-character, and she rejects friendships/relationships with other women unless they can further her career (until the end). It's a little unbelievable that she hasn't seen her dad in ten years, and they STILL have nothing to talk about. But I guess that's another story entirely!

So while her character is interesting, and she eventually sees the light, it's interesting that even a careerist like Christiane Amanpour (the CNN reporter who this character reminds me of) has a husband and child.

This book tries to tackle the horror of South Africa's apartheid regime (former apartheid) and that caused me to explore further. Now I want to read the character's namesake works, author Nadine Gordimer, a famous S. African writer, who amongst other things, won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1991.

It's a good summer read. And yes, there are quite a few holes in the story, BUT I couldn't put it down, so that says something right there!

Ward tackles two disparate themes in Forgive Me: the psychological depths of motherhood and the ugly face of apartheid in South Africa. Journalist Nadine Morgan has long sought comfort by chronicling the problems of others. After her mother's early death from cancer, she is rudderless, dependent on a devastated father for the marginal emotional support he can offer. While best friend Lily becomes a wife and mother, remaining in Cape Cod, Nadine escapes into her work, arriving in Cape Town, South Africa, during the tumultuous days of rage that erupt in black townships (slums). Exhilarated by the danger all around her, Nadine falls impulsively in love with a photo-journalist, Maxim, the two tracking the violence as it erupts throughout Cape Town, years of oppression coming to fruition.

It is there that tragedy strikes in the death of a young American, Jason Irving, who is killed by an angry group of young people, one of whom is only a girl, the sister of one of Nadine's new township acquaintances. A more personal tragedy follows and Nadine flees South Africa, beginning a long pattern of fear of commitment and self-knowledge. Ten years later, Nadine is left for dead in Mexico after a severe beating by members of a local drug cartel. She wakes at her father's place in Cape Cod, childhood memories stalking her every waking moment, confined by her injuries but yearning to flee. As a local doctor treats Nadine's injuries, he also offers a measure of calmness, giving Nadine a short respite from the drive that has so fueled her life until now. But an article in a local paper send Nadine skittering back to South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission about to hear the case of the American volunteer so brutally killed. In a coincidence that feels like fate, Nadine is on the same plane as Jason's parents, his bitter and defeated mother unwilling to forgive her son's murderers or grant Nadine an interview. As soon as Nadine lands in Cape Town, the old days come rushing back, along with the guilt she has carried since her first visit.

But there are two levels to this novel, a subtle sub-plot contained in the diary of a young boy dreaming of stardom, his difference from others only endurable as he considers the future. Interspersed with Nadine's agonizing journey to the past, this new thread is woven into an intricate melding of personal demons, motherhood and the harsh realities of a cruel world. Torn between her old habits and the promise of a secure and loving future, Nadine revisits a world she has successfully avoided until now, the adrenaline-charged days of apartheid and its consequences and the reality of her own identity. Horror is unveiled during the TRC hearings, society attempting to move past its blood-soaked history. Inhabiting a lifestyle that allows her to avoid introspection, Nadine is finally face to face with how she has limited her own happiness. Courageously, this flawed young woman finally comes home to herself. A surprise twist threw me for awhile; upon reflection, although it does not enrich an already powerful tale, Ward's unique talent is validated in gifted prose ("They told each other ribbons of stories.") and a vision that transcends the ordinary. Luan Gaines/ 2008.