Absolution

by Patrick Flanery

In this stunning literary debut, Patrick Flanery delivers a devastating and intimate portrait of post-apartheid South Africa, and the perils of taking sides when the sides are changing around you.
 
Told in shifting perspectives, Absolution is centred on the mysterious character of Clare Wald, a controversial writer of great fame, haunted by the memories of a sister she fears she betrayed to her death and a daughter she fears she abandoned. Clare comes to learn that in this conflict the dead do not stay buried, and the missing return in other forms--such as the small child present in her daughter's last days who has reappeared, posing as Clare's official biographer. Sam Leroux, a South African expatriate returning to Cape Town after many years in New York, gradually earns Clare's trust, his own ghosts emerging from the histories that he and Clare begin to unravel, leading them both along a path in search of reconciliation and forgiveness.

Genres: Fiction, Africa, South Africa, Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction, Novels, Contemporary

400 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Patrick Flanery was born in California in 1975 and raised in Omaha, Nebraska. After earning a BFA in Film from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts he worked for three years in the film industry before moving to the UK, where he completed a doctorate in Twentieth-Century English Literature at the University of Oxford. As well as publishing scholarly articles on British and South African literature and film in a number of academic journals, he has written for Slightly Foxed and The Times Literary Supplement. He lives in London.

Reviews

[Leggere A Colori]

Patrick Flanery, al romanzo d’esordio, ha una scrittura che dalle primissime pagine prende il lettore per mano e lo conduce dentro la storia svelandone, poco a poco, piccoli significativi tasselli, accostando la narrazione del presente a quella del passato, le immagini reali a quelle viste in sogno. La scelta lessicale asciutta ma d’impatto. Nonostante la complessità del racconto, non ci si sente mai smarriti nel procedere della narrazione che avvince e appassiona.

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