Heaven's Edge

The New York Times

Wistful, melancholy and mysterious, Heaven's Edge is a complex novel that entwines the individual's quest for wholeness with a country's longing for lost -- and better -- times. — Akash Kapur

Publishers Weekly

Set on an environmentally devastated tropical island that resembles his native Sri Lanka, Gunesekera's new novel follows a Londoner named Marc, who comes to the island to find his father but instead gets caught up in a passionate affair with an ecological activist. When he arrives at the country's only hotel, the run-down Palm Beach Inn, Marc encounters a scarred landscape nothing like the idyllic pictures painted by his grandfather Eldon, a native who moved to London in his youth. Marc's attempts to find his father, who disappeared here when Marc was a child, come to naught, but his lover, Uva, opens new doors as she teaches Marc about her efforts to continue farming against the wishes of the island's repressive regime. Government troops begin tracking Uva, and soon soldiers attack and destroy Uva's farm. Marc is imprisoned in a government compound but manages to escape. Once he tracks down Uva's erotically preoccupied bisexual friend, Jaz, and a metalworker named Kris who has pivotal ties to Uva's past, the three embark on a quest to find Uva. The search has moments of both breathtaking suspense-e.g., the trio rebuilds a damaged plane to escape pursuing soldiers-and quiet introspection, as Marc reflects on his ambivalence toward this land. The novel's structure is a bit cliched, but there's a spark in Gunesekera's writing that gives his characters life; the affair between Marc and Una is especially rich and subtle. Gunesekera has explored these cultures and themes in his earlier books, notably Reef, which was shortlisted for the Booker, but the compelling romance makes this one of his best efforts. (Feb.) Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

In an almost epic quest to discover and understand both his homeland and himself, Marc returns from England to the unnamed tropical island from whence his family came. He feels displaced and dissatisfied until he meets Uva, an environmental activist who offers him color and enlightenment-but at a terrible price. For through his relationship with her, he is lured into the subversive underworld of those who dare to challenge the authority of the island's warlords. Much of this book describes the terrible dichotomy of a place, based on the author's native Sri Lanka, that in its natural beauty is truly at the edge of heaven yet in its political and social strife teeters on the edge of hell. Gunesekera, whose first novel, Reef, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1994, writes in a lyrical and evocative style, but the violence that ensnares his characters seems to despoil the beauty of the prose. While the intent may be to shock the reader from complacency, it creates a pacing challenge: this is an adventure story containing kernels of truth that, if developed differently and with the writer's obvious talent with words, could have resulted in a deeper novel. As such, the whole is less than the sum of its parts. Recommended only where demand warrants purchase.-Caroline Hallsworth, City of Greater Sudbury, Ont. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A strange, lyrical third novel about a young man searching for his father and his lover in a war-torn tropical island, by the London-based Sri Lankan novelist (The Sandglass, 1998, etc.). Born and raised in London, Marc is the grandson of an immigrant from "the island" (unnamed but obviously Sri Lanka), and he grew up hearing such tales of its lush natural beauty from his grandfather that he came to imagine it as a kind of Eden. His fascination turned into obsession, however, when Marc's father (also raised in London) traveled to the island while Marc was still a boy-and never returned. Now Marc has arrived there himself to try to learn what he can about the whereabouts of his father and the history of his family. Rival gangs of warlords control the island and most of the cities are in ruins-as is much of the countryside, stripped of its crops and vegetation by the various warring armies. On his first day there, though, Marc discovers a beautiful girl releasing doves in the forest. Her name is Uva, and she's an "ecowarrior" who tries to repair the damage to the island by planting crops and raising animals against the decrees of the warlords (who want the populace dependent on them for food). Marc and Uva quickly become lovers, but then Uva is kidnapped by army thugs. In his search for her, Marc becomes part of an underground resistance movement and roams the island with his new comrades Jaz and Kris. Before he learns what became of Uva, however, he makes some startling discoveries about the real story behind his father's disappearance, and he learns what true horror lies beneath the deceptively beautiful face of this bright but cruel place. With great feeling and intensity, this is an oddstory nevertheless: a strange mix of New Age politics, magical-realism, and multicultural fabulism.