"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
The "darling" of the story is Dawn Carrington, ne้ Hannah Musgrave, a political radical and member of the Weather Underground forced to flee America to avoid arrest. At the time of the novel, she is 59, living on her working farm in upstate New York with four younger women, recalling her life in Liberia and her recent return to that country to look for her sons. "Mainly, we return to a place in order to learn why we left," she says. For Hannah, the decision was harrowing. She abandoned her sons during a bloody civil war, after the death of her husband, Woodrow Sundiata, a black African Cabinet Minister in President Samuel Doe's government, who is beheaded in front of her and her three boys. Banks explores mercilessly the corruption, greed, sloth, cynicism, and violence running through the Liberian leaders from Tolbert to Doe to Charles Taylor, weaving the real story of the horrors of West Africa with the fictional narrative of Hannah and Woodrow. He can take history off the page, bringing to life the times, people and events he recounts.
Hannah was born a child of privilege and chafed against it from her youth: "...it was an old impulse ... this desire to separate myself in the dance of life from the people who had brought me and become one instead with the people excluded from the dance..." Her father is a famous pediatrician, her mother a shadow figure maintaining a predictably correct suburban household. Both parents are liberal, but Hannah outstrips their political stance early on. They are estranged for many years because of her flight, but the separation is really much deeper than distance or politics.
She becomes a wife and mother, and is bored and unfulfilled by the role. She turns to creating a sanctuary for chimpanzees and finds her real purpose. "An old pattern. It's how since childhood I have made my daily life worth living, by turning tedium and despair into a cause." She names each chimp, calls them her "dreamers," and cares for them while others care for her children. Self-knowledge is not high on a list of her personal attributes. Although she characterizes herself as "a darling," there is little evidence to support her claim: distant father, cold mother, controlling husband. She finally sees herself in a true light: "Here it all was again: the names and dates, the tired facts of my biography up to then, the description of my few skills and talents. It was the CV of a small-time, would-be domestic terrorist. Sad. Pathetic." Hannah Musgrave is a visitor in her own life, never really connecting with anyone; more a dreamer than a darling.
Russell Banks has, once again in The Darling, shown himself to be one of the finest novelists writing today. He has written very convincingly, in a woman's voice, a story of youthful idealism destroyed by the real world, of a woman who connected more completely with chimps than with humans, and who says, "once it was clear to me that I would have to abandon my husband and children and return alone to the United States, once I saw that I would be alone, safe from prosecution--I realized, gradually at first and then in a rush, that it was exactly what I had wanted all along... I was once again seizing an opportunity to abandon one life for another." Another reinvention for Hannah. --Valerie Ryan
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Shipping:
US$ 6.12
From United Kingdom to U.S.A.
Book Description Hardback. Condition: Very Good. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. Seller Inventory # GOR003922592
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. First Edition. Hardcover with dust jacket. Pages are clean and unmarked. Covers show very minor shelving wear. Binding is tight, hinges strong. Dust jacket shows light edge wear.; 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed! Ships same or next business day!. Seller Inventory # 131908210030
Book Description Paperback. fine trade paperback copy, uncorrected proof 1st edition, a classic novel about Africa. Seller Inventory # FN07/1016
Book Description Condition: Good. Ships from the UK. Former library book; may include library markings. Used book that is in clean, average condition without any missing pages. Seller Inventory # 39820276-20
Book Description Condition: Used - Very Good. VG paperback. First Edition. Uncorrected proof copy. Top corner of a few pages bent, otherwise a bright, tidy copy. Seller Inventory # BOOKS266354I
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. First Edition. This is a Fine Copy of this Hardcover book in a Fine Dust-Jacket which has NO chips or tears to the outer edges of the dust-wrapper.Not price clipped and this copy has NO previous names or inscriptions present.This copy was acquired from the private collection of Ursula Owen Co Founder of Virago Press in 1974 and who sat as one of the Judges on the Panel of The Orwell Prize for 2011.The book has a firm binding with no hinge weakness and there is no leaning or rolling to spine.Lovely clean copy internally with crisp white page edges.8vo 392pp First Edition 1st Impression. Seller Inventory # 60402
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. First Edition. This is the first UK edition. Size: Octavo 8vo (standard book size). 394 pages. Text body is clean, and free from previous owner annotation, underlining and highlighting. Binding is tight, covers and spine fully intact. No foxing in this copy. Dust Jacket is in very good condition, without tears or chips or other damage. All edges clean, neat and free of foxing. The book is available and will be PACKAGED professionally, DISPATCHED promptly and a TRACKING NUMBER will be advised by Australia Post. Hannah Musgrave - enigmatic, tough, middle aged - has lived many lives. A member of the terrorist group, The Weathermen in the 60s, she was once a hardened radical, both sexually and politically. Fleeing from the FBI, she settles in Liberia, where she marries a politician and becomes a mother and a wife. But Hannah remains removed from her life in Africa, even from her husband and three sons. It is only the chimpanzees in the sanctuary which she develops that truly touch her.Liberia, in the meantime, is a country waiting to explode. As a bloody war erupts Hannah is on the run again. This time though, the past won't disappear.Reminiscent of the novels of Greene and Conrad, The Darling is big, bold, utterly compelling storytelling. Quantity Available: 1. Shipped Weight: Under 1 kilogram. Category: Fiction; Contemporary fiction; United States; 2000s; ISBN: 0747574006. ISBN/EAN: 9780747574002. Pictures of this item not already displayed here available upon request. Inventory No: 10487. Seller Inventory # 10487
Book Description First Edition. Fine cloth copy in a near-fine dw, now mylar-sleeved. Particularly well-preserved overall; tight, bright, clean and strong. SIGNED. Physical description; 391 p. ; 24 cm. Subjects; Americans Liberia ; Fiction. Human-animal relationships Fiction. Liberia ; Fiction. 1 Kg. Seller Inventory # 280028
Book Description First Edition. Fine cloth copy in a near-fine dw, now mylar-sleeved. Particularly well-preserved overall; tight, bright, clean and strong. SIGNED. Physical description; 391 p. ; 24 cm. Subjects; Americans Liberia ; Fiction. Human-animal relationships Fiction. Liberia ; Fiction. 1 Kg. Seller Inventory # 280028