From the Bookshelf of Around the World in 80 Books…
Find A Copy At
Group Discussions About This Book
No group discussions for this book yet.
What Members Thought
Freeman’s overly ambitious novel set in the early 1980s in Sri Lanka uses a street of diverse families to tell the story of the years leading to the Civil War from the intimate level of the families, from the national level of the country, and a global level informing many of this conflict. When the Mr. and Mrs. Heath and their four children move into lane, their next neighbors takes count on which side this family will fall in with the mixed lot of Sinhalse, Tamils and Burghers already residing
...more
I got to close to page 200 before making the decision to stop reading the book; I just wasn’t engaged with it no matter how much I wanted to be. Using one neighborhood as a microcosm of Sri Lanka as whole to depict communal divisions and oncoming civil war is a premise that I was excited to check out. Whether you think the execution of the premise works will depend on whether you find following the daily dramas of a group of neighborhood children an intriguing pathway to understanding the costs
...more
This was a slow read, but it did build on itself and I found myself increasingly fond of the characters and their relationships with one another. Full of foreshadowing and foreboding, you know from the beginning that the childhood days of cricket games, climbing in trees, and music lessons will not last forever for the children and families on this lane. It is told from a third person perspective, "the air" passing through Sal Mal Lane, and as the civil war in Sri Lanka breaks, this perspective
...more
Jul 12, 2014
Katy
marked it as to-read
Feb 26, 2015
Madeleine
marked it as to-read
Aug 25, 2015
Katie
marked it as to-read
Sep 08, 2015
Jen
marked it as to-read
Oct 05, 2015
Georgia Carvalho
marked it as to-read
Jan 27, 2019
Keeley
marked it as to-read
May 08, 2021
Kirsten Barber
marked it as to-read-soon
