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Overview
From Jonathan Raban, the award—winning author of Bad Land and Passage to Juneau, comes this quirky and insightful story of what can happen when one can and does go home again.For the past thirty years, George Grey has been a ship bunker in the fictional west African nation of Montedor, but now he's returning home to England-to a daughter who's a famous author he barely knows, to a peculiar new friend who back in the sixties was one of England's more famous singers, and to the long and empty days of retirement during which he's easy prey to the melancholy of memories, all the more acute since the woman he loves is still back in Africa. Witty, charming and masterly crafted, Foreign Land is an exquisitely moving tale of awkward relationships and quiet redemption.
Synopsis
From Jonathan Raban, the award—winning author of Bad Land and Passage to Juneau, comes this quirky and insightful story of what can happen when one can and does go home again.
For the past thirty years, George Grey has been a ship bunker in the fictional west African nation of Montedor, but now he's returning home to England-to a daughter who's a famous author he barely knows, to a peculiar new friend who back in the sixties was one of England's more famous singers, and to the long and empty days of retirement during which he's easy prey to the melancholy of memories, all the more acute since the woman he loves is still back in Africa. Witty, charming and masterly crafted, Foreign Land is an exquisitely moving tale of awkward relationships and quiet redemption.
Library Journal
After 40 years, George Grey is leaving his work in foreign countries and returning to live in retirement in England. He returns to a daughter who scares him, a house that haunts him, and a culture that befuddles him. It is only in purchasing a small boat that he recovers a sense of personal balance. Returning to the ocean provides the security that his native land and his compatriots seem to suck out of him. Raban's new novel is a kindly exploration of the psyche of an expatriate Englishman trying to adjust to post-empire Britain. The descriptions of people and places give a true sense of the ``new'' life George faces rather unwillingly. The reader will enjoy accompanying George on his voyages, both nautical and personal. Highly recommended. W. Keith McCoy, Plainfield P.L., N.J.