The Darling : A Novel
Author(s): Russell Banks
“Russell Banks’s work presents without falsehood and with tough affection the uncompromising moral voice of our time. You find the craziness of false dreams, the political inequalities, and somehow the sliver of redemption.”—Michael Ondaatje
Set in Liberia and the United States from 1975 through 1991, The Darling, from acclaimed author Russell Banks, is the story of Hannah Musgrave, a political radical and member of the Weather Underground.
Hannah flees America for West Africa, where she and her Liberian husband become friends of the notorious warlord and ex-president, Charles Taylor. Hannah's encounter with Taylor ultimately triggers a series of events whose momentum catches Hannah's family in its grip and forces her to make a heartrending choice.
Review(s):
"Russell Banks’s work presents without falsehood and with tough affection the uncompromising moral voice of our time. You find the craziness of false dreams, the political inequalities, and somehow the sliver of redemption. I trust his portraits of America more than any other—the burden of it, the need for it, the hell of it.”
“Banks’s novel is a vivid account of a time of terror, exposing the secrets of the soul.”
“Powerful and evocative.”
“Banks creates a heroine every bit as complex and flawed as someone out of Jane Austen.”
“The real achievement here is the creation of Hannah; she’s one of the few recent literary characters I expect I’ll remember, and the book itself is the most engaging one I’ve read all year.”
“Extraordinary...Hannah offers a first person narrative so moving, so pitiless, so rare in contemporary fiction that it embodies Aristotelian catharsis... Banks is that rare epic novelist.”
“Hannah’s story shows why Banks ranks among our boldest artists.”
“Admirable, compelling, always surprising and never clichéd.”
“In The Darling, he is working at full strength, and his readers are in his debt.”
“Once again, he has produced a novel that is searing, demanding and unforgettable.”
ISBN: 9780060957353