The Forgiven

Zusatztext 73371616 Informationen zum Autor Lawrence Osborne Klappentext In this haunting novel! journalist and novelist Lawrence Osborne explores the reverberations of a random accident on the lives of Moroccan Muslims and Western visitors who converge on a luxurious desert villa for a decadent weekend-long party. David and Jo Henniger! a doctor and a children's book author! in search of an escape from their less than happy lives in London! accept an invitation to attend a bacchanal at their old friends' home! deep in the Moroccan desert. But as a groggy David navigates the dark desert roads! two young men spring from the roadside! the car swerves...and one boy is left dead. When David and Jo arrive at the party! the Moroccan staff! already disgusted by the rich! hedonistic foreigners in their midst! soon learn of David's unforgiveable act. Then the boy's irate Berber father appears! and events begin to spin beyond anyone's control. With spare! evocative prose! searing eroticism! and a gift for the unexpected! Osborne memorably portrays the privileged guests wrestling with their secrets amid the remoteness and beauty of the desert landscape. He gradually reveals the jolting backstory of the young man who was killed and leaves David's fate in the balance as the novel builds to a shattering conclusion.Now with Extra Libris material! including a Q&A and bonus content One They didn’t see Africa until half past eleven. The mists broke apart and motorboats with European millionaires came swooping out of the blue with Sotogrande flags and a flash of tumblers. The migrants on the top deck began to shoulder their bags, revived by the idea of home, and the look of anxiety that hovered in their faces began to dispel. Perhaps it was just the sun. Their secondhand cars stored in the hull revved as their children scattered about with oranges in their hands, and an energy seemed to reach out from the edge of Africa to the Algeciras ferry, polarizing it. The Europeans stiffened. Sunbathing in their deck chairs, the British couple were surprised by the height of the land. On the tops of the mountains stood white antenna masts like lighthouses made of wire, and the mountains had a feltlike greenness that made you want to reach out and touch them. The Pillars of Hercules had stood near here, where the Atlantic rushes into the Mediterranean. There are places that are destined to seem like gates. One can’t avoid the sensation of being sucked through a portal. The Englishman, a doctor of a certain age, shaded his eyes with a hand bristling with ginger hairs. Even with the naked eye, they could make out the snaking outlines of roads that might have been there since Roman times. David Henniger thought, “Perhaps it’ll be easier than we think, this drive. Perhaps it’ll be a pleasure after all.” From a boom box near the flagpole came a few bars of rai, of Paris hip-hop. He watched his wife reading a Spanish paper, flicking the pages back and forth indifferently, then glanced down at his watch. People were waving from the approaching city, raising handkerchiefs and fingers, and Jo took off her shades for a moment to see where she was. He admired the frank confusion written all over her face. L’Afrique. They went for a beer at the Hotel d’Angleterre. It was not hot. The air was wet with recently broken mist. Con men and pretty “guides” danced around them while the sun drenched the terrace with a smell of varnish and peppercorns and stale beer. A laughing mood dominated the seedy expats and their hangers-on nursing their plates of unshelled nuts and their cooled gins. We were once the most formidable bohemians, their faces said to the newcomers, and now we are delightful, playful shits because we have no choice. The Hennigers had arranged for an agent to deal with the car rental, a man who would run back and forth with keys and contracts, and while they waite...

Produktdetails

• Autoren: Lawrence Osborne
• Verlag: Hogarth US
• Sprache: Englisch
• Produktform: Taschenbuch
• Erschienen: 04.06.2013
• EAN: 9780307889041
• ISBN: 978-0-307-88904-1
• Seiten: 304
• Abmessung: 137 mm x 203 mm x 21 mm
• Thema: Belletristik > Erzählende Literatur