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Overview
Ancient history, family past, present day - all collide in this intricately woven first novel about three generations of one family, set against seventy years of political turmoil in Europe. At the outbreak of World War I, renowned archaeologist Lionel Richardson flees Sarajevo to begin an excavation at Ano Meri, an ancient palace in Crete. His success there becomes a lifelong obsession for which there is a very high price - one that his family must pay.
Synopsis
Ancient history, family past, present day - all collide in this intricately woven first novel about three generations of one family, set against seventy years of political turmoil in Europe. At the outbreak of World War I, renowned archaeologist Lionel Richardson flees Sarajevo to begin an excavation at Ano Meri, an ancient palace in Crete. His success there becomes a lifelong obsession for which there is a very high price - one that his family must pay.
Publishers Weekly
In Beaton's first novel, allusions to history, myth, opera, literature and psychoanalysis are as densely packed as the archeological site on Crete that obsesses three generations of Robertsons from 1914 to 1922. The labyrinthine plot, which unfolds within a framing device that begins and ends in Sarajevo, records Lionel Robertson's "adventure of a lifetime"-his 1920 excavation of Ariadne's summer palace at Ano Meri and its repercussions on the lives of his son and grandson. Years after the fact, a scandal surrounding the dig threatens to tarnish the Robertson name as well as the British archeological establishment. In response, Lionel's grandson Dan embarks on a harrowing quest for identity that frees him from the grip of the past. A brooding, Faulknerian atmosphere hovers over this novel, with its backdrop of war, family secrets and questions of paternity. Beaton's elaborate style is at times portentous, slowing the pace of the narrative. Yet the dogged reader will find this historical adventure-mystery hard to put down, and it will be harder still to be unimpressed by its ambitious, sophisticated themes. (Apr.)
Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
In Beaton's first novel, allusions to history, myth, opera, literature and psychoanalysis are as densely packed as the archeological site on Crete that obsesses three generations of Robertsons from 1914 to 1922. The labyrinthine plot, which unfolds within a framing device that begins and ends in Sarajevo, records Lionel Robertson's "adventure of a lifetime"-his 1920 excavation of Ariadne's summer palace at Ano Meri and its repercussions on the lives of his son and grandson. Years after the fact, a scandal surrounding the dig threatens to tarnish the Robertson name as well as the British archeological establishment. In response, Lionel's grandson Dan embarks on a harrowing quest for identity that frees him from the grip of the past. A brooding, Faulknerian atmosphere hovers over this novel, with its backdrop of war, family secrets and questions of paternity. Beaton's elaborate style is at times portentous, slowing the pace of the narrative. Yet the dogged reader will find this historical adventure-mystery hard to put down, and it will be harder still to be unimpressed by its ambitious, sophisticated themes. (Apr.)Kirkus Reviews
First-time British author Beaton blends narrative forms—history and fiction, mystery and myth—with ease in this unusual (if occasionally overwrought) story about a multigenerational obsession that refuses to die.Writer, photographer, and amateur archaeologist Lionel Robertson is the imposing patriarch of a tumultuous family in a complex saga that effortlessly spans nearly a century. With WW I looming (in the opening scene Lionel, dressed like a proper Englishman in "Edwardian whites," improbably witnesses the assassination of the Archduke and Duchess in Sarajevo), Lionel escapes from England to Crete and launches an excavation of Ano Meri, an ancient Greek palace that will later become known, thanks to Lionel's discoveries, as Ariadne's Summer Palace. He unearths some carved gemstones at the site that gradually become a family obsession. Decades later, Lionel's grandson Dan—a disgruntled employee at the Institute of Chronometry who specializes in dating clay pots—must deal with accusations that either his father (who also worked at the internationally renowned site) or grandfather secretly excavated a part of the palace, left no record of his findings, and then covered up the excavation as if there were something to hide. Dan begins to search through his family possessions for the records in the hope that these strange activities can be explained. His father Daniel, having been largely abandoned by Lionel as a child, died young but managed even so to strike up a relationship of sorts with his father; and now Dan's daughter Lucy, training to become a psychoanalyst, helps him sort through the nightmares he has inherited from his obsessive ancestors, nightmares that will, in all likelihood (Beaton suggests), never end.
Despite some extravagant twists that strain credibility, and a number of overlong patches, a generally captivating "dig" into the ancient as well as more recent past.