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What Will Survive
It is the summer of 1997. Aisha Lincoln, supermodel-turned-charity-campaigner, sets out on her latest trip to the Middle East, with a famous photographer in tow. However, the assignment turns into tragedy when both are killed in an explosion in a remote area of Lebanon. 'Beautifully written and very clever. I absolutely loved it.' - PD James
278 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 2007
About the author
Joan Smith
19 books40 followersJoan Alison Smith is an English novelist, journalist and human rights activist, who is a former chair of the Writers in Prison committee in the English section of International PEN. In 2003 she was offered the MBE for her services to PEN, but refused the award. Joan Smith is an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
November 2, 2013
This is one of those rare books, where I wish I had a receipt so that I could bring it to the author and ask her to refund my time.
It purports to be about the death of a former-supermodel-turned humanitarian who was blown up by a landmine under mysterious circumstances. Really, the majority of the book is taken up with the incredibly tedious, and only vaguely relevant, lives of her boorish husband and her equally boorish lover.
Close to the end, the book seems to remember it has a premise, and ties up the circumstances behind the death of the model in a handful of pages.
I'm not exaggerating how extremely irrelevant most of the book was to anything happening in the Middle East, or really, anything anyone would want to read about at all. And even when going over the fate of these two men after the model dies, the author manages to skirt any actual emotional scenes. For example, she
One of the blurbs on the back read: "Smith's ability to maintain suspense while picking her way through the complexities of Hezbollah's relationship with other Lebanese factions and its opposition to Israel's occupation of the south is impressive... moving, thoughtful, and absorbing." I wonder if that reviewer was reading a different book, because Hezbollah's position in Lebanon was mentioned a couple of times at the very end, sure. There was in-depth analysis like one of the characters saying something like, "Hezbollah is trying to gain respectability here." Yeah, that was deeply insightful.
And suspense? Please. I had almost forgotten anyone was looking into the death of the model at all. Actually, she wasn't, she was just doing background.
When you spend the time you are reading the book trying to imagine how it made it off a slush pile instead of being gripped by the characters, you know that something is very wrong (my conclusion: some kind of nepotism is the closest I can come to an answer). I hoped there would be some miraculously stunning ending that would tie everything together, but no, it just petered out kind of weirdly.
Recommended to: people who enjoy reading between the lines so much that they don't really need any lines to read.
It purports to be about the death of a former-supermodel-turned humanitarian who was blown up by a landmine under mysterious circumstances. Really, the majority of the book is taken up with the incredibly tedious, and only vaguely relevant, lives of her boorish husband and her equally boorish lover.
Close to the end, the book seems to remember it has a premise, and ties up the circumstances behind the death of the model in a handful of pages.
I'm not exaggerating how extremely irrelevant most of the book was to anything happening in the Middle East, or really, anything anyone would want to read about at all. And even when going over the fate of these two men after the model dies, the author manages to skirt any actual emotional scenes. For example, she
One of the blurbs on the back read: "Smith's ability to maintain suspense while picking her way through the complexities of Hezbollah's relationship with other Lebanese factions and its opposition to Israel's occupation of the south is impressive... moving, thoughtful, and absorbing." I wonder if that reviewer was reading a different book, because Hezbollah's position in Lebanon was mentioned a couple of times at the very end, sure. There was in-depth analysis like one of the characters saying something like, "Hezbollah is trying to gain respectability here." Yeah, that was deeply insightful.
And suspense? Please. I had almost forgotten anyone was looking into the death of the model at all. Actually, she wasn't, she was just doing background.
When you spend the time you are reading the book trying to imagine how it made it off a slush pile instead of being gripped by the characters, you know that something is very wrong (my conclusion: some kind of nepotism is the closest I can come to an answer). I hoped there would be some miraculously stunning ending that would tie everything together, but no, it just petered out kind of weirdly.
Recommended to: people who enjoy reading between the lines so much that they don't really need any lines to read.
Displaying 1 of 1 review