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17th out of 31 books
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26 voters
The Darling
Set in Liberia and the United States from 1975 through 1991, The Darling is the story of Hannah Musgrave, a political radical and member of the Weather Underground.
Hannah flees America for West Africa, where she and her Liberian husband become friends of the notorious warlord and ex-president, Charles Taylor. Hannah's encounter with Taylor ultimately triggers a series of e...more
Hannah flees America for West Africa, where she and her Liberian husband become friends of the notorious warlord and ex-president, Charles Taylor. Hannah's encounter with Taylor ultimately triggers a series of e...more
Paperback, 400 pages
Published
October 11th 2005
by Harper Perennial
(first published September 21st 2004)
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the woman's point of view is so well done in this book that it's hard to believe it was authored by a man. i simultaneously loved and loathed the main character. the fact that it's historically accurate, and that charles taylor, who is featured prominently in the novel, has been in the press recently, make it all the more interesting.
I have incredibly disturbing thoughts about primates, and this book didn't help me out one bit.
War, massacre and menage a trois (thanks to LC for coining this phrase!). That pretty much sums up this disappointing book by the author of the great "The Sweet Hereafter". "The Darling" is long-winded, self indulgent, and at times, quite unrealistic. The protagonist is a white woman who fled to Liberia after creating and setting off a few bombs for the Weather Underground. We are constantly reminded of her mindset (and her bed mates) and she doesn't come off as an authentic female character, bu...more
I saw Russell Banks read when Affliction first came out. He came across as a very thoughtful man who was a novelist of the human heart--the book is one of his best, though I was also quite fond of Continental Drift. Banks had a mind towards international waters (he said in the Q & A afterwards, when someone asked how much he knew about Haiti when writing Drift, that he only started learning about the place when he decided he wanted to write about it and did not decide to write about Haiti be...more
I loved Russell Bank's book Cloudsplitter, which I read a few years ago, and I was really looking forward to The Darling. I was not disappointed either. The Darling is set in Liberia and the US between 1975-91. It is the story of one Hannah Musgrave, who was a member of the Weather Underground. She fled from America to west Africa, where she and her African husband fell in with Charles Taylor, the notorious criminal warlord. She eventually participates in Taylor's escape from prison. This was in...more
OK No. Anyone who says anything about this book is wrong. This book is about this girl in the weather underground, like your parents? And Forrest Gump. So she goes underground. But she's not like the girl in American Pastoral who becomes totally annoying and pisses everyone off. Not that she didn't piss a LOT of people off. So she goes into hiding, and fucks off to Africa. Aggra. Agra. Ghana! Word, I TOTALLY want to go to Agra, Ghana after reading this book.
OK so she's hiding out. And who is she...more
OK so she's hiding out. And who is she...more
2 likes · like · see review
"The Darling" is another outstanding novel by Russell Banks. Powerful and complex, it's the story of Hannah Musgrave. Born of well-to-do liberal-minded parents, Hannah joins the Weathermen radical movement in the 60s; she excels at bomb-making and passport-forging. As the Weathermen find themselves arrested and under indictment, Hannah goes underground, living with a woman and her daughter and going by the name Dawn Carrington. Hannah/Dawn eventually leaves the United States and ends up in Liber...more
One of the best books I've read in a long time. I believe this may be one of Banks' best though it's probably less read than some of the others. What he captures so well is the unknowingness (I know that's not a real word) in a moment in the life. One of my favorite features of this book is the way Hannah, the main character, is framed inside a story that's within a story. While the writing is not Faulknerian, the framing is -- think Light in August. What also is compelling about this book is th...more
I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I will be reading more from Russell Banks. I'd give it 3.5 stars if I could. I gave it 3 because I like books that are profound I guess, and this one feels like a political thriller movie in a novel form; more action than drama. I pictured Angelina Jolie playing the main character as I read. I actually found out half way through that The Darling is being made into a movie, and Cate Blanchette is playing the main character not Jolie. Some of the book took...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
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As in his previous novel about John Brown, Cloudsplitter, Banks combines personal intimacy with political insight in a gripping drama that gets preachy only briefly a couple of times. Immediately in the wake of the 9/11 attacks (barely mentioned but prominent as a backdrop), a woman in her 50s narrates her story from the time she goes underground as a member of a Weatherman cell until she winds up in Liberia, marries a minor government official, has 3 sons, is exiled to the U.S. for a few years,...more
Comment peut-on être si naïve, tellement aveugle à ce qui se passe réellement dans un pays dont on reconnaît la corruption quand on est engagée politiquement ? Hannah/Dawn, l'héroïne d'American Darling n'a vu du Liberia que ce qu'elle voulait bien en voir. Elle se voile la face, se met elle-même entre parenthèses lors de sa vie africaine.
Ce roman aurait pu être lourd, fort. Il apparaît pourtant dilué, la faute à une héroïne qui s'abstrait de sa propre vie : elle s'est engagée dans un mouvement r...more
Ce roman aurait pu être lourd, fort. Il apparaît pourtant dilué, la faute à une héroïne qui s'abstrait de sa propre vie : elle s'est engagée dans un mouvement r...more
I love Mr. Banks. This book was an interesting read because of the historical events the story is wrapped around. However, I had a difficult time believing that the main character, a mother, could be that detached. It is some how believable when he writes about men but his foray into writing from a female voice I think falls short.
This book doesn't take on life until 1/4 way in, when Hannah Musgrave has returned to Liberia (to which she first fled in order to escape her possible imprisonment as a member of the the Weather Underground) to confront certain "ghosts" from her past. Russell Banks, to his credit, keeps these ghosts rather vague - does she return to confront the spirits of the chimpanzees who had fallen under her care and who perished because of her choices? Or to find the sons she had abandoned, the sons who ha...more
Ever since reading Cloudsplitter, which I loved, I thought that Russell Banks would be one of my favorite authors. But I don't think I'll keep trying... nothing I've read of his comes close. This book was just ok.
The main character was so unlikeable and disjointed. She disliked her parents because they loved her too much? Or was it that they were self-centered? Nope, at the end we're back to how much she loved her father. She's a good parent to the chimps, but an unfeeling mother to her own kids...more
The main character was so unlikeable and disjointed. She disliked her parents because they loved her too much? Or was it that they were self-centered? Nope, at the end we're back to how much she loved her father. She's a good parent to the chimps, but an unfeeling mother to her own kids...more
i did not understand the narrator one iota. now, that is not always necessary for me to enjoy a book. but this person did not feel real, feel human. she was a person with a story that might have happened - but this narrator was an empty shell. this story could not possibly have happened to HER. maybe that was what the book was trying to say (she was incredibly detached?) - but if so - i never felt like that dynamic was explored. i also found her annoying. again, this doesn't doom a book for me....more
Banks' trademark detached authorial stance does him no service here. He presents a text-book-like, bloodless (figuratively) account of a pseudo-revolutionary's journey to and from Liberia, the nation formed by the US government during the 19th century as a new home (and/or dumping ground for) freed slaves. His style, and the utter lack of humanity, the non-identity of his protagonist/narrator, make the social injustices and ethical atrocities he catalogs herein feel bland and uninteresting.
Anna...more
Anna...more
This book is really a 3 and a half star book. I liked this colorful story of a 1960's ex-hippie terrorist living underground in war torn Africa and some of the writing was excellent but it's quite a mammoth tale and although most of the prose does the labyrinth plot and it's morally complex themes justice, some of the writing is merely prosaic. In fact some passages are so " this happened and then this happened" that it reads more like plot notes rather than an actual finished manuscript. I foun...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
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An interesting story, very timely as we listen to news of Charles Taylor's trial in the Hague for war crimes while ruling Liberia. THe disapointment is that the protagonist is a very un-maternal female, created by a male and somewhathrd to relate to.
Until the very last page, I wondered why this wasn't called "The Dreamers." A book that melds 1960s radical activism (Civil Rights Movement, feminism, and Weather Underground) and political upheaval in Liberia, there was enough history to keep me reading. Hannah Musgrove was an exasperating protagonist: too self-reflective yet not quite introspective, unable to (openly) love people but willing to commit emotionally to animals, hard on others but somehow letting herself off. The CIA, American rad...more
May 23, 2009
Elizabeth
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
armchair pissed off political activists who want someone to actually do what you're thinking
Shelves:
2009
there i was at the airport bookshop- in a panic- and i picked this book up solely on russell banks reputation. and i'm so happy i did. it's excellent in its narrative about heavy duty political activists during a certain period- like the weather underground. the main character Hannah Musgrave who goes underground as Dawn Carrington ends up living a life in Africa and being the caretaker for her "dreamers" chimpanzees and finally ends up running a farm in upstate new york. but so much happens in...more
Strong writing about a part of the world where I have never traveled and, after reading this, where I never will. The treatment of women was a tough read but the fate of Hannah's children made for even more difficult imagining. We had friends who lived in Liberia in an effort to be "safe" from the McCarthy witch-hunts and many of their recollections of the culture, politics and art (in the '50s) were a huge contrast to the present. Colonialism is wrong but there seems to be little hope now for t...more
I'd forgotten how much I love Russell Banks. The Darling is complex, sprawling, melancholy, and terrifying, and it taught me more about Liberia than I thought I'd ever learn (and want to know). It's useless to try and summarize the plot except to say that it's about a woman who becomes a traitor to the U.S. in the 60's, moves to Africa, marries a member of Liberia's ruling party, and opens a sanctuary for chimps. Except it's so much more than that. Like his earlier novel Cloudsplitter (about rad...more
Jan 08, 2010
Aneesa
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Graham Greene fans
Recommended to Aneesa by:
Dre, book club
I was fascinated by the history lesson, and recognized truth in the personal relationships between the narrator and her parents as well as in how she viewed the way she developed. I loved the writing and the way the story was told (the reflection, the assumed audience, the intertwining pieces), though not the narrator herself. The chimp plot was undeveloped and felt neglected, although there definitely could have been a place for it, in a longer novel.
“It was the same anxious, edgy mingling of t...more
“It was the same anxious, edgy mingling of t...more
I really wanted to like this book, and it was a very good book, but I didn't really like it. As always, Banks's writing is gorgeous. Though the book is written in first person, Liberia was, for me, the central character, primarily because the narrator was so detached from the events she described that I was detached from her. It was quite odd, reading a first-person narrative and feeling so little connection to the narrator. The reading group guide led me to believe I should have gained all thes...more
I have learned to expect the unexpected from Russell Banks.
This is a story about specific events in history told by an American woman who identifies with radical politics and actions. But she is so emotionally removed from every phase in her life as to arouse a sense of the pathological. Never at home for long with any situation in which she finds herself, she has no trouble leaving it behind regardless of the emotional detritus that may result. Dispassionate, sometimes brutal, flatly honest, H...more
This is a story about specific events in history told by an American woman who identifies with radical politics and actions. But she is so emotionally removed from every phase in her life as to arouse a sense of the pathological. Never at home for long with any situation in which she finds herself, she has no trouble leaving it behind regardless of the emotional detritus that may result. Dispassionate, sometimes brutal, flatly honest, H...more
I found The Darling to be a political-historical narrative of great scope and range. The "darling" of the story is Dawn Carrington, neé Hannah Musgrave, a political radical and member of the Weather Underground forced to flee America to avoid arrest. At the time of the novel, she is 59, living on her working farm in upstate New York with four younger women, recalling her life in Liberia and her recent return to that country to look for her sons (Amazon).
I listened to this book on audio and was c...more
I listened to this book on audio and was c...more
1 like · like · see review
Big fan of all of Russell Banks' work. This one gives great insight to the history of Western influence/exploitation of Africa and how it's ramifications are really coming to a head today. The protagonist is an unsentimental former SDS and WU radical who expatriates to Liberia and marries into the highest tiers of government. Charles Taylor is a significant character in the book which goes on to describe the revolution of which he took over. Particularly interesting in light of Liberia's recent...more
I liked this quite a lot, even though I found the protagonist, Hannah Musgrave, difficult to relate to. Hannah is the only daughter of a prominent, anti-war pediatrician (think Dr. Benjamin Spock), who becomes a political activist in the late sixties and eventually a member of the Weather Underground. She ends up on the FBI's most-wanted list, and flees to Liberia, where she marries a government official and is soon embroiled in the chaotic political situation there in the 1980s. I learned quite...more
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Russell Banks is a member of the International Parliament of Writers and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His work has been translated into twenty languages and has received numerous international prizes and awards. He has written fiction, and more recently, non-fiction, with Dreaming up America. His main works include the novels Continental Drift, Rule of the Bone, Cloudsplit...more
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“my blue eyes peering into their brown eyes and seeing there some essential part of myself, some irreducible aspect of my being, which in turn gave them back the same reflected version of themselves”
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Mar 13, 2009 08:13am