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    Absolution: 2012 WINNER OF THE SPEAR’S FIRST BEST BOOK AWARD
    Unavailable
    Absolution: 2012 WINNER OF THE SPEAR’S FIRST BEST BOOK AWARD
    Unavailable
    Absolution: 2012 WINNER OF THE SPEAR’S FIRST BEST BOOK AWARD
    Ebook459 pages5 hours

    Absolution: 2012 WINNER OF THE SPEAR’S FIRST BEST BOOK AWARD

    By Patrick Flanery

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Winner of the Spear's First Best Book Award, 2012
    Longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize, 2012
    Longlisted for the Guardian Book Award, 2012
    Longlisted for the Green Carnation Prize, 2012
    Shortlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, 2014

    In her garden, ensconced in the lush vegetation of the Western Cape, Clare Wald, world-renowned author, mother, critic, takes up her pen and confronts her life. Sam Leroux has returned to South Africa to embark upon a project that will establish his reputation - he is to write Clare's biography. But how honest is she prepared to be? Was she complicit in crimes lurking in South Africa's past; is she an accomplice or a victim? Are her crimes against her family real or imagined? In the stories she weaves and the truth just below the surface of her shimmering prose, lie Sam's own ghosts.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAtlantic Books
    Release dateMar 1, 2012
    ISBN9780857896636
    Unavailable
    Absolution: 2012 WINNER OF THE SPEAR’S FIRST BEST BOOK AWARD

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    Reviews for Absolution

    4/5

    78 ratings23 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This is a complex novel, written in four narrative threads and shifting chronology which will no doubt become a new best seller. An aging writer and her biographer gradually unwrap layers of background knowledge and history with excellent character development and clarity. It is not the kind of novel you can read in isolated bits and starts, as the narratives intertwine and rely on each other as in a good mystery.This book was received from the publisher as an Early Reviewer in exchange for an honest review.
    • 5/5
      This complex novel has the stories and imaginations of two main characters interwoven through time periods and perceptions. We meet Sam as a young boy and as a biographer of Clare, whom we meet as a successful author and a conflicted mother. We never meet the pivotal character, Laura, Clare's daughter, who disappears 20 years before the present in ambiguous circumstances. The interchange between memory and outcomes is fascinating, as is the political backdrop of the Anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa.
    • 5/5
      Absolution is set in contemporary South Africa, a country struggling to establish a new identity in the insecure, often violent, post-apartheid era. The novel is written from multiple skillfully interwoven perspectives. Its structure gives us first person, second person and third person points of view, as well as some “neutral” information in excerpts from testimony before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. These perspectives overlap just enough to keep the reader intrigued, absorbed, and puzzled as to what is the “truth”, or whether there is any way to reconcile the disparate versions of events that emerge Our first person narrator is Sam Leroux, a somewhat awkward young man who has been chosen to write the biography of a well-known and controversial author, Clare Wald. Acknowledged as an expert on Wald, whose work he reveres, Sam is nevertheless ill-equipped to draw her into conversational interviews, and Wald is not inclined to make his task any easier. She informs him that she is “a terror”, and sets the ground rules for their meetings. She will not discuss her dead sister, or her presumed-dead daughter Laura’s revolutionary activities; she will not offer Sam food or drink; she will not allow him access to her diaries or other personal papers; she will not entertain questions whose answers are a matter of public record. As Sam tells us of these meetings, we perceive that his interest in Clare Wald is not exclusively academic, that there is some history between them which he is at pains to repress. Clare herself is one of the most elaborately unreliable narrators I've ever encountered. In interviews with Sam, when she is not avoiding direct answers to his questions, she sometimes lies to him outright, as Sam and the reader learn over time. Ultimately, we are not even certain that Clare is not subconsciously deceiving herself about much of her past. Clare’s eponymous sections of the novel are composed as though she were writing the history of her daughter’s last days, pieced together from diaries given to her after Laura’s disappearance, and from Clare’s own nightmares and novelistic imaginings. Further, she relates this history in the second person, as though she were explaining it all to a living participant whose memory has been damaged, or perhaps to a ghost from whom she is hoping to elicit either confirmation or refutation. “Outside, it was light enough to see yourself in one of the truck’s mirrors. There were purplish bags under your eyes and you had recently chipped one of your front teeth. It was not a face you liked, too much of me in the jaw and complexion…” “You could not recall how many days it had been; perhaps five, perhaps as many as fifteen hundred. You had been deprived of any means of recording the passage of time…” Laura’s final hours, as envisioned by Clare, are horrific, and it is difficult to imagine any mother conjuring up such an end to her child’s existence, let alone writing it down. .In the third person sections of Absolution, an omniscient narrator takes us through periods of Sam’s early life and reveals the way Clare lives now--a voluntary prisoner in her own home, locked away behind double gates and shuttered windows, with panic buttons in every room. We learn the connections between these two people, and begin to understand the sources of their internal conflicts. As the title suggests, they are both carrying satchels of guilt, struggling to understand and atone for their ambiguous complicity in distant events. Although he is married and has established a reputation for himself, Sam is still quite young and on occasion naïve. However traumatic his past, his future is still his to shape. We expect him to make a decent show of it. Clare, on the other hand, is near the end of her life, and if she has any illusions left, it is because she has planted them, pruned them and kept them alive in the otherwise overgrown garden of her memory. It is difficult to sympathize with her, impossible to like her, but her efforts to examine her life and come to an acceptance of its rugged truths are admirable.Absolution is one of the best novels I have read in a long time. It is thought-provoking, thrilling and suspenseful, and a masterpiece of literary construction. Remarkably, it is also a first novel from author Patrick Flanery. I will be replacing my dog-eared, well-marked-up ARC of this book with a final published edition, and look forward to a re-read, which will surely be even more rewarding than the first. Five stars; highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      With the end of apartheid in South Africa in the 1990s white South Africans were left to answer for the devastation caused by hundreds of years of exploitation of the indigenous black majority. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, an easy target for criticism, not only failed to redress the human rights crimes of a regime but also to reconcile the remaining black and white communities. It is the consequences of this failed reconciliation that Patrick Flanery’s novel Absolution attempts to reveal.While it would prove fertile ground for reflection to delve into the means by which sanctioned criminals absolve themselves, Flanery imagines the pardon necessary for those who opposed apartheid but still enjoyed its advantages. Blatant race superiority and opportunism are submerged and disguised by overt, though relative, noble political stances and high mindedness. The hypocrisy of these postures is tested and exposed by the various acts of resulting violence and betrayal.At first it may seem that there could be nothing less revealing about apartheid than looking at white bourgeois discomfort but Flanery paints a complex emotional and intellectual picture that lays bare the contradictions of colonialism and liberalism. Although he resorts to some implausible plot devices to create confrontations, the primary characters are full. The sense of real persons with real dilemmas is present throughout without losing the purpose of the novel.This is a very strong first effort and one hopes to see this talent fully realized.
    • 5/5
      Loved everything about this enthralling book: the character development, the structure, the four interwoven plot strands, the writing, the sense of place - just masterful.
    • 3/5
      Reading some other reviews, I had wanted to really like [Absolution], the tale of Sam Leroux, an American college professor working on the biography of a successful South-African author, Clare Walt. Sam, himself an expatriate South African, and Clare are connected through a set of characters who were radical actors in the struggle against apartheid, and the book attempts to meld together diary entries and letters with narrative in an exploration of the themes of redemption, absolution, political violence and personal memories. Alas, this first effort by [[Patrick Flannery]] just does't work. The structure of the book is clumsy, while the author fails to convincingly develop Clare's voice - perhaps he is too young - and his depiction of South Africa as nothing more than a violent hellhole is a disservice to that beautiful country.I get the feeling that Flannery picked themes that he considered to be "significant" and "enlightened" in order to write a "great book". Unfortunately, great themes are not sufficient, and he didn't succeed.
    • 5/5
      Impossible to put down. Definitely worth a detour. If setting is important to you and it is to me, the setting in contemporary South Africa is compelling. I have visited the cell where Mandela was kept all those years on Robyn Island which makes the book feel more personal to me. The wretched life under apartheid and life now in South Africa after the end of apartheid. (I will add my comments to my blog as well and to Amazon.)
    • 4/5
      A very well written book, however it would have rated more stars had it been shorter. It is a compelling story of a society experiencing radical change, as well as several personal stories that shine a light on the profound impact of that change. The "approximations" of the "truth", the slowly revealed complexity of relationships and reactions, is generally well done. By the end, however, I was wishing the end had come sooner. That is my only complaint about this excellent debut novel.
    • 4/5
      Set in modern-day South Africa the story Clare tells the effect of apartheid through her sister's death and her daughter's disappearance. I found the shifting voice/point of view distracting and often hard to follow, but otherwise a good read
    • 4/5
      A masterful first novel. A gripping read set in the final days of apartheid South Africa as recounted by two witnesses - an aging author and her biographer whose own interactions act as the narrative fuel. It would be a five-star rating but for the sometimes convoluted structure and occasional lapses into overly preachy dialog (usually between these two figures).
    • 5/5
      Having only read one of her books and knowing next to nothing of her personal life, I wondered if Clare was a stand-in for Doris Lessing? It doesn’t matter if that’s true or not, the book is excellent. Some reviews complain that things are not as clear for the reader as they could be, but I didn’t mind as much as some. There are several narratives and timelines to follow and if you don’t pay attention, things can slip. There’s Clare in the present, bellowing over having to meet with Sam, her (chosen) biographer, to answer tedious questions (why won’t he ask the right ones?). There’s Sam’s current situation, staying with college friend, Greg, while he waits for his wife, Sarah, to join him in Johannesburg. There’s also Sam’s past; when he was an abandoned/orphaned child and met Laura, Clare’s estranged daughter, now missing and presumed dead for 2 decades. And finally we have a section written by Clare to Laura in which she confesses her past sins and speculates on what Laura’s final notebooks really mean. There is such deliberation in the way this story is told that it’s easy to trust the author. Even when things were obscure, I felt confident that Flanery would get me satisfaction in the end. For example, Laura’s notebooks aren’t presented whole, but instead are interpreted by Clare (and I don’t even think she quotes her even once). Since we never get to read Laura first hand, we have to wonder how much of what’s in the notebooks is true and how much is Clare’s fantasies about how virtuous her daughter was and by extension, her cause; overturning the government. Which leads me to another character; South Africa during the incredibly corrupt apartheid government. According to his bio, Flanery has never lived there and even if he did, he’s too young to have been an adult then. The sense of place and time is so thorough and realistic that I’d never have bet an author with no direct experience could have written it. Fantastic and very scary, not just for the blacks in that situation (although it was far, far worse), but for everyone. The menace is palpable. The whole “investigation” into Clare’s home invasion/break in was insane and reminds me that I really need to read Kafka.And if that’s not enough, the writing is fabulous. Normally when I read a thriller or similar novel, I don’t subvocalize. Never do. I am a sight reader and a very fast one, but with books like this I do subvocalize. It’s a deliberate choice I make and the extra time it takes to read is worth it. Sam and Clare have different voices and I just love how total that was. For example, Clare uses the word cohere quite a bit, but I didn’t notice Sam do it once, which he wouldn’t. Keeping that straight is one of those signs you are in good hands. “and a voice like curdled cream…” p. 51 (describing a real estate agent)“The light carried the thick odor of wood smoke and returned to you earlier fires on the beaches of childhood holidays, to the far for funerals and weddings, numberless ceremonies of the everyday and the extraordinary.” p. 144 (Clare imposing her desires onto Laura’s history)“Clare looked for a smile but Mark was as solemn as if preparing for the judicial chamber; if there was humor or empathy there, another part of him sat holding down the cage that contained them.” p. 253 (Mark is Clare’s son who has just heard Clare’s big secret about the death of her sister)“You decided that day to accept whatever invitation was extended, to infiltrate yourself into her life, finding a way to return the sting of her transgressions.” p. 264 (Clare again supposing, this time how Laura got involved with her anti-apartheid cell)With all that said, I have little doubt that Flanery will once again end up on my top five books list for 2016.
    • 4/5
      The book was a compelling read. I felt lost in the first 50 pages but then the story began to evolve more clearly and soon I became enthralled wanting to solve the mystery of Laura and Sam. I also found that I wanted to know more about South Africa and the impact of Aparatheid on the culture of that country. Great first book.
    • 4/5
      This is an extremely dense read, as the author asks the reader to follow as he connects the strands of memory, imaginings, past and future. Post apartheid, there is much on censorship, as one of the main characters, Clare, is an author of much fame and one of the few that manged to get published during those years. She holds much regret and searches for absolution in the deaths of her sister and brother in law and her part in those deaths as well as in the disappearance of her daughter. Sam, is charged with writing the biography of this woman, and he has regrets and secrets as well. They are both holding tight to secrets and their past connection to each other that needs to be exposed. This is an extremely well written novel, but the changing focus is a times very confusing and at other times pure genius. I would give this book a 4 for the writing and a 3 for the story, so I settled on a 3.5. This is definitely an author to watch.
    • 5/5
      It is difficult to believe that this is a debut literary effort! The writing is masterful, dreamlike, and gripping. The form of the novel reels the reader into a confusion of dream, truth, and untruth, creating the confusion which is the primary theme of the novel. What is truth? What is history? What can ever be known for certain? This is true for personal and social history as portrayed in this wonderfully woven story of the pursuit of both personal and national absolution. Absolution is sought for actions taken, actions which are perceived differently by each individual as well as factions within one nation, both before and after apatheid in South Africa. Patrick Flanery is an author who has set a high standard for himself in this first novel. I look forward to seeing what comes next from this new literary voice.
    • 4/5
      Really enjoyed reading this book. Gave me great insight into living in a place like South Africa during turbulent times. I feel like a learned a lot about what it would be like to live in a environment of constant fear, whether real or exaggerated. Also does an excellent job of describing censorship from different point of views. The story itself was solid, but I think the story was more of a way to deliver a social commentary. At times the writing felt a little dry and maybe droned on a bit, but it in the end it all felt necessary for the story. I would definitely recommend this book to others.
    • 4/5
      Perhaps the most compelling character in this novel is South Africa. I came into the story knowing little more than the average American does about apartheid, but the landscape of South Africa over time paints a much clearer and more devastating picture than I imagined was possible -- even modern-day South Africa's portrayal in the story was amazing to read. That said, I thought the book was a little long for what it wanted to be, which was a deep and reflective tale with a big end "discovery" about Laura. I liked the discovery, although it's far from a twist, but the slow pacing of the story gave the discovery little weight when Sam makes it and even less when Clare finds out. It's kind of... anticlimactic at that point. Flanery did a wonderful job with his unreliable narrators' intersecting tales. I just wish he could have sped the story along a little bit, especially in the last section.
    • 5/5
      Complex and well written, Absolution will have you wanting to read the next work by this new author, Patrick Flanery. Told in two voices, it weaves a complicated story of violent change in South Africa and the quiet creeping of lies and the mystery of memory. Clare is a renowned author whose daughter, Laura, has disappeared into the violence, responsible for some awful things that Clare can only imagine, and imagine she does. Along comes Sam to interview her and write her biography. When he was a young boy he and Laura chose violence together which he is hesitant to reveal to Clare. Clare herself wallows in the guilt of betrayal which resulted in the violent death of her sister and brother-in-law. How will these two wounded people stop living with their own lies, come to know the lies of the other, correct their memories and find some solace for the future? The book is written in a nonlinear plot line which sometimes confuses and sometimes explains leaving the reader impressed with the author’s skill and lots of questions still churning in the brain into the wee hours of the night.
    • 4/5
      This book was tremendously well written! I loved the four-pronged narrative and the divergence in each story. South Africa itself felt like another character, the way it affected so many decisions and brought up such a host of emotions in the human characters. The themes of guilt, loss, and entrapment were thoroughly explored in Sam and Clare, and the relationship between the two of them felt genuine. How much do you let another person know that you know? When can you trust enough? Who will be the first to speak? I will be on the lookout for more books by Patrick Flanery.
    • 4/5
      Overall, I liked the book. The first part was great, and kept my attention very well. However, the second part of the book lacked a little bit for me. There was no suspense or action or something to keep me interested, so I kind of waned on the second half. I would have liked a little bit of mystery or something to keep me guessing, but I had this one figured out from the beginning. Not a bad book, the content was actually very interesting and educational, but not quite engaging enough for me.
    • 4/5
      There are many big themes in this novel: guilt, responsibility, the unreliability of memory, and, of course, forgiveness and absolution.Centered in the last days of apartheid in South Africa, the novel tells the story of a successful white author, Clare Wald, who was married and raising two children at that time. Some chapters are told in Clare's voice and some by her biographer, Sam. The book's organization is not traditional and it is sometimes difficult to tell if the events recounted actually happened. Questions are raised that are not satisfactorily answered. The biggest mysteries -- what happened to Clare's daughter and to Clare's sister and how is Sam related to any of these characters -- keep returning, sometimes seeming to be resolved but later found to be still open to question.It is a challenging book, not for one looking for an easy read, yet it is also a compelling story written with a confident hand.
    • 4/5
      The life of a South African anti-apartheid activist, Laura Wald, who disappeared and the people whose lives she touched, is delivered to us through excerpts ... excerpts from her journals that she left with her mother, author, Clare Wald, excerpts from the memories of Sam, a young boy she befriends and aids while she's on a mission, excerpts from a book that Clare's written, and Laura's own voice. Woven into the mystery surrounding Laura's disappearance are Clare's own secrets that torment her. Do all our actions carry the ramifications we subconsciously expect, or is it guilt that makes us claim accountability for tragedies that occur?We are submerged in secrets and secret lives. What is truth and what are questionable memories? Are we who we think we are? If we don't speak of certain events, do we get to deny the truth?This is an incredible work by an author I am eager to read more from.
    • 4/5
      This is an intriguing story and good read although I was not drawn in to identify with the characters portrayed. Perhaps it was the author's use of his "shifting perspective" which prevented me from really connecting: no real connection seemed to develop. Dealing with the problems in both apartheid and post apartheid South Africa, the novel is set in contemporary South Africa and deals with the main character's memories, fears, and regrets as she examines her life along with her biographer.Reconciliation and forgiveness are examined.... both as a personal, individual quest and as the quest of a nation
    • 5/5
      Patrick Flanery has written a wonderful sophisticated novel. The story of two people whose emotional journey towards each other is told from the alternating perspectives of each of them. The story is not an "easy" tale. The characters are drawn so well that they become "real". We see the main character Clare Wald as a flawed individual, a woman who was a distant parent and wife. Yet, Flanery as endowed her with so much humanity that one can not help but feel symapthy for all she has done or left undone. Sam Leroux, who tells the second perspective in this novel, is also flawed, in ways far different than Clare but he too is drawn with compassion.Set in South Africa and alternating time periods between contempory and post aparthid , this tale with its twists and turns, it's truths and half truths, is influenced as much by place as by events.Mr Flanery has written a history book, a mystery, a literary novel and a love story all wrapped into one good read. This is not a book of answers but a tale of perceptions. A story of how our stories differ, though we may have experienced the same events. How we desire to make ourselves heard and accepted. Also how in the end, we seek Absolution.This is Patrick Flanery's first novel. I would not hesitate to read his next !