Picture of author.

Sabina Murray

Teoksen A Carnivore's Inquiry: A Novel tekijä

9+ teosta 420 jäsentä 24 arvostelua

Tietoja tekijästä

She grew up in Austrialia & the Philippines. A former Michener Fellow at the University of Texas & Bunting Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute of Harvard University, she is the author of the novel Slow Burn. She has also written a screenplay titled Beautiful Country.She is the Roger Murray Writer in näytä lisää Residence at Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts. (Bowker Author Biography) näytä vähemmän

Includes the name: Sabina Murray

Image credit: from UMASS Amherst faculty page

Tekijän teokset

A Carnivore's Inquiry: A Novel (2004) 148 kappaletta
The Caprices (2002) 107 kappaletta
Valiant Gentlemen (2016) 62 kappaletta
Forgery: A Novel (2007) 36 kappaletta
Tales of the New World: Stories (2011) 28 kappaletta
The Human Zoo (2021) 17 kappaletta
Muckross Abbey and Other Stories (2023) 13 kappaletta
Slow Burn (1990) 8 kappaletta

Associated Works

xo Orpheus: Fifty New Myths (2013) — Avustaja — 274 kappaletta
Manila Noir (2013) — Avustaja — 62 kappaletta
A Manner of Being: Writers on Their Mentors (2015) — Avustaja — 12 kappaletta

Merkitty avainsanalla

Yleistieto

Jäseniä

Kirja-arvosteluja

A collection of spooky short stories, each involving academia in some way. In "The Long Story", a doctoral student becomes lost in the foggy English moors and is rescued by an art scholar who lives nearby. She invites the student into her home, where she tells him about the death of her son. In the title story, a literary agent travels to a gloomy Irish village to help search for her old college roommate, who has gone missing from her honeymoon. In "Apartment 4D", a mother surprises her nearly grown children by recounting a horrifying story about the apartment she lived in when she was young and single.
Each story drew me in quickly. Murray writes about unsettling circumstances and spooky events, yet these work on another level too, that of people working out their relationships. It's a good read.
… (lisätietoja)
½
 
Merkitty asiattomaksi
mstrust | Jan 2, 2024 |
Very good. Really interesting novel set in the Philippians. The descriptions of the homes, the streets, the objects, the food, the fruit, the drinks really connect the sense of place. Fascinating, but frightening in the mess of it all—the violence, the history, the politics. Depressing, sad, enraging, but lovely, familial, nostalgic. Very well told in all its detail.
 
Merkitty asiattomaksi
BookyMaven | 2 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Dec 6, 2023 |
This superb, engrossing novel derives much of its considerable charm from a rare feat. Valiant Gentlemen explores utterly serious subjects with insight and compassion, yet the author doesn’t take herself too seriously, nor do her characters. And this must be intentional, because when one character begins to look too hard at his reflection in later life, the change marks his downfall.

The three stars in Murray’s constellation are Roger Casement, Herbert Ward, and Ward’s wife, Sarita. All three were historical figures, and Casement is particularly significant, a man who campaigned against colonial abuses in Africa and for Irish independence. If you’ve heard of him, you’ll almost certainly know his tragic end; but in this book, the journey counts more than the destination, so don’t let that deter you. (That said, skip the jacket flap, a hodgepodge that accomplishes nothing except to blab what should be withheld and hide what should be revealed.)
The journey here begins in the Congo in 1886, where young Casement and Ward meet. Both are looking for gainful employment and adventure, but since the work pays little, adventure keeps them going. At first, they toil for King Leopold of Belgium and his so-called International Association of the Congo, but then for British trade interests, both of which carry political consequences.

However, at this point, those considerations still percolate below the surface. Ward, a former circus acrobat, seasoned traveler, dead shot, and gifted sketch artist, is at heart a deeply lonely man who wants to make good. Casement, a skilled linguist, brilliant organizer, charismatic, and possessed of boundless energy, is lonely too, but for a different reason. He’s homosexual, a fact he must conceal, and he’s hopelessly attracted to Ward.

I find Valiant Gentlemen irresistible, the African scenes especially, in part because I’ve lived in Central Africa and researched Leopold, his hireling Henry Stanley, and the colonial plunder of that region. So it’s a particular pleasure to run across names of peoples, places, and historical figures I haven’t seen in years, more so that Murray captures their essence. For instance, when Ward remarks of Stanley’s latest book that it’s full of bravado, Casement ascribes that to the “typical writing style of short, ill-tempered men.” Touché. And when Murray describes the weather, and its “usual blanket of heat,” she re-creates what it feels like to be in that place.

The two men’s paths diverge, as each gets what he’s been looking for. Casement sets his sights on becoming British consul in one African colony or other, and Ward leaves Africa and gets married. His bride is an Argentinian-American heiress, so you may well ask how a penniless, erstwhile acrobat manages to attract her and earn her father’s consent. But I won’t tell you, except to note that Sarita Sanford is a woman ahead of her time and says what she thinks. When two such irrepressible spirits meet, the results are bound to be hilarious.

The marriage gives Ward what he’s always wanted, respectability. But, unlike Sarita, he calls that an end in itself, the mirror-gazing I referred to above. She’s less conventional than he, perhaps because she recalls her early girlhood, and what it was like to be poor, differently from how Ward holds onto his past and a father who had only contempt for him.

So he doesn’t quite know what to make of Casement the muckraker, who earns fame publicizing Leopold’s brutalities, a gripping subject that Murray handles with skillful economy yet raw power. Ward’s always happy to see Casement and drink with him—and the Ward children love their Uncle Roddie—but you sense the growing rift between the two old friends, and a betrayal in the wind. Sarita, meanwhile, understands Casement perhaps better than her husband, though the two men have a bond she can’t share. The First World War brings matters to a head.

Murray dazzles you without being self-conscious; it just seems natural. So it’s startling to come across phrases like “tipping point” or “I’m fine with that,” which I doubt were current in 1910, or careless errors, like “council” when the text implies “counsel.” All the same, I’m fine with unbridled zest and a bubbling, potent narrative; Valiant Gentlemen is a brilliant, magical book.
… (lisätietoja)
 
Merkitty asiattomaksi
Novelhistorian | 3 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Jan 30, 2023 |
Quite the entertaining story. The protagonist is a spoiled, only child, whose father never seemed to be around, and whose mother liked to tell her fascinating stories. Katherine often seems drawn to older men who, like her father, have plenty of money. She finds a good use for their money, and when they get married to her, she finds a way to lose them.
I found the numerous vignettes of various cannibals in history that the author included for the reader's amusement informational.
 
Merkitty asiattomaksi
burritapal | 7 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Oct 23, 2022 |

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Tilastot

Teokset
9
Also by
4
Jäseniä
420
Suosituimmuussija
#58,060
Arvio (tähdet)
½ 3.5
Kirja-arvosteluja
24
ISBN:t
40
Kielet
1

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