- Save $10 when you spend $50 and pay with Bill Me Later. The fast and convenient way to buy without using your credit card. Offer limited to items purchased from Amazon.com between July 14, 2008 and July 21, 2008. One per customer account. Enter code BMLSAVES at checkout. Here's how (restrictions apply)
Join Amazon Prime and ship Two-Day for free and Overnight for $3.99. Already a member? Sign in.
Special Offers and Product Promotions
Better Together
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Employing a richly varied chorus of voices and excerpts from diaries and journals, Barbados native Kamau explores the enigmatic character of Gladstone Belle, former minister of tourism and culture of a small Caribbean country, in this followup to Flickering Shadows, Kamau's acclaimed debut. After Belle's body is discovered hanging in his bedroom, friends, relatives and acquaintances recount their interactions with the fallen bureaucrat, and a nuanced picture gradually emerges of a man who was at once a flamboyant, charismatic politician and a retiring private figure. As in his first novel, Kamau has assembled an impressive supporting cast: Isamina, Belle's unfaithful wife; Sonny-Boy and Esther, his colorful parents; Pee Wee, a heartless thug; and Carl, the clueless husband of Debra, one of Belle's former lovers. Each one presents a different and conflicting vision of Belle. Meanwhile, Sonny-Boy, Belle's wise, insightful and incorruptible father, is shown to be a character nearly as complex as his son. Feeling like an outsider in his native land, Sonny-Boy left for America, where he lives in Florida and works as a janitor, returning to bury the son he never knew, and participating in a communal grieving process that brings every rumor and deceit into the open. While Isamina recalls her husband's excessive brooding and drinking in the weeks before his death, she wonders whether the cause for his fall was political, romantic or spiritual. Did he really have a man killed to cover up an act of agency fraud? Did he know about her affair? As the evidence piles up, Kamau imparts wisdom on issues of race, class, political corruption and reform, and moral decay in this multilayered puzzler about a man whom nobody really knew. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Kamau's intriguing second novel (after Flickering Shadows) gives new meaning to the notion that seeing is not always believing. At the opening of the book, former Deputy Prime Minister Gladstone Belle hangs, dead, from a ceiling joist in his house. Almost immediately, his parents, Miss Esther and Sonny-Boy; his widow, Isamina; and assorted others begin to suspect foul play. Set on a small island in the Caribbean, the book moves from voice to voice as Gladstone's childhood friends, neighbors, ex-girlfriends, widow, daughter, and co-workers all ruminate upon the mark he left on their lives. Gladstone himself narrates bits of the novel, via journal excerpts and poems in which he writes eloquently about his failures as a husband and his disillusionment with government corruption. In the end, one character notes, "Trying to discover who a person is is like trodding down all kinds of dead ends in a maze." Kamau writes in a lilting, unaffected style with real compassion for his characters. This is a haunting, powerful, beautiful story; highly recommended for public and academic libraries.ALisa S. Nussbaum, Euclid P.L., OH
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
Employing a richly varied chorus of voices and excerpts from diaries and journals, Barbados native Kamau explores the enigmatic character of Gladstone Belle, former minister of tourism and culture of a small Caribbean country, in this followup to Flickering Shadows, Kamau's acclaimed debut. After Belle's body is discovered hanging in his bedroom, friends, relatives and acquaintances recount their interactions with the fallen bureaucrat, and a nuanced picture gradually emerges of a man who was at once a flamboyant, charismatic politician and a retiring private figure. As in his first novel, Kamau has assembled an impressive supporting cast: Isamina, Belle's unfaithful wife; Sonny-Boy and Esther, his colorful parents; Pee Wee, a heartless thug; and Carl, the clueless husband of Debra, one of Belle's former lovers. Each one presents a different and conflicting vision of Belle. Meanwhile, Sonny-Boy, Belle's wise, insightful and incorruptible father, is shown to be a character nearly as complex as his son. Feeling like an outsider in his native land, Sonny-Boy left for America, where he lives in Florida and works as a janitor, returning to bury the son he never knew, and participating in a communal grieving process that brings every rumor and deceit into the open. While Isamina recalls her husband's excessive brooding and drinking in the weeks before his death, she wonders whether the cause for his fall was political, romantic or spiritual. Did he really have a man killed to cover up an act of agency fraud? Did he know about her affair? As the evidence piles up, Kamau imparts wisdom on issues of race, class, political corruption and reform, and moral decay in this multilayered puzzler about a man whom nobody really knew. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Kamau's intriguing second novel (after Flickering Shadows) gives new meaning to the notion that seeing is not always believing. At the opening of the book, former Deputy Prime Minister Gladstone Belle hangs, dead, from a ceiling joist in his house. Almost immediately, his parents, Miss Esther and Sonny-Boy; his widow, Isamina; and assorted others begin to suspect foul play. Set on a small island in the Caribbean, the book moves from voice to voice as Gladstone's childhood friends, neighbors, ex-girlfriends, widow, daughter, and co-workers all ruminate upon the mark he left on their lives. Gladstone himself narrates bits of the novel, via journal excerpts and poems in which he writes eloquently about his failures as a husband and his disillusionment with government corruption. In the end, one character notes, "Trying to discover who a person is is like trodding down all kinds of dead ends in a maze." Kamau writes in a lilting, unaffected style with real compassion for his characters. This is a haunting, powerful, beautiful story; highly recommended for public and academic libraries.ALisa S. Nussbaum, Euclid P.L., OH
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
|
Inside This Book Explore: Concordance | Text Stats Key Phrases - SIPs: gad daim, former deputy prime minister, honorable member Key Phrases - CAPs: Gladstone Belle, Miss Esther, New York, Miss Mimi, Boy Blue (more) Browse Sample Pages: Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover | Surprise Me! |
||