Available:*
Item Barcode | Collection | Call Number | Status | Item Holds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 33607002013806 | Adult Fiction | HOPE | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
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Summary
Summary
The author of Serenity House and Kruger's Alp (winner of the Whitbread Prize for Fiction) returns with a lyrical and taut novel about the past fifty years of white presence in South Africa, as seen through the eyes of a superbly authentic female character. Once it seemed to Kathleen Healey that Africa was empty and all of it belonged to her. An aviator, big game hunter, and knitting devotee, who once boxed three rounds with Ernest Hemingway, she would land her plane wherever and whenever she chose. She was free with her favors, too, and her multitude of lovers came from all over the world. But when she begins to fade with illness, she entrusts her only son Alexander to carry out her final wishes -- a legacy guaranteed to "keep her smiling in her grave." Bitingly funny, outrageously inventive, and peopled with a fantastic cast of characters, My Mother's Lovers is an epic tragicomedy, fierce and radiant as our enduring romance with Africa.
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The sprawling ninth novel from South African Hope (Kruger's Alp, etc.) pursues a son's adoring, adversarial relationship with his legendary mother and with South Africa as it changes over his lifetime. Alexander, born in 1944, returns to postapartheid Johannesburg to distribute the effects of his mother, Kathleen Healey, formerly a devil-may-care Karen Blixen-era big-game hunter. Alexander isn't sure who among the motley "uncles" who floated through his mother's life is his father, and readers see a lot of Kathleen's laissez-faire parenting as young Alexander, in retrospect, is subject to it. As the novel flashes back and forth in time, there's also Koosie, a mixed-race orphan boy taken under Kathleen's wing who later gets swept up in the black power movement. (Alexander becomes an itinerant air-conditioner salesman.) Kathleen, dying of cancer, makes a last-ditch attempt to marry a much younger Cuban refugee of Castro's regime and help spirit him to safety. Later, we meet Cindy, a "Coloured" woman now playing the rich "Jo'burg dolly-bird," who worked with Kathleen at a shelter for handicapped kids and is overwhelmed by Kathleen's personality. Hope allows Kathleen to come through clearly, and individual episodes are suffused with Alexander's lifelong ambivalence. His portraits are skillful, but the novel doesn't fully jell. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Library Journal Review
Set primarily in South Africa from the late 1800s to the present, this engrossing novel features an eclectic cast of characters. At its center is Kathleen Healey, a pipe-smoking aviator, hunter, knitter, and all-'round adventurer who leaves lovers in her wake. Kathleen travels the continent of Africa, going wherever and whenever she chooses, and she has unlimited tales to share of her incredible experiences. While tracing the Healey family history, the novel also explores the history of South Africa, especially its conquests and civil wars. Significantly, in a land where race is of prime importance, Kathleen is color blind. When Kathleen dies, her only son, Alexander, returns to Johannesburg after an absence of many years. As he reconciles conflicted feelings toward his mother and his mother country, Alexander renews old relationships, makes new friends, and grapples with love, belonging, identity, and race. Hope, whose numerous novels include Kruger's Alp, winner of the Whitbread Prize for Fiction, offers vivid and powerful descriptions of modern-day South Africa. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries.-Sarah Conrad Weisman, Corning Community Coll., NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.