An edition of Mortals (2003)

Mortals

1st ed.
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Last edited by MARC Bot
March 7, 2023 | History
An edition of Mortals (2003)

Mortals

1st ed.
  • 0 Ratings
  • 2 Want to read
  • 0 Currently reading
  • 0 Have read

The greatly anticipated new novel by Norman Rush—whose first novel, Mating, won the National Book Award and was everywhere acclaimed—is his richest work yet. It is at once a political adventure, a social comedy, and a passionate triangle. It is set in the 1990s in Botswana—the African country Rush has indelibly made his own fictional territory.

Mortals chronicles the misadventures of three ex-pat Americans: Ray Finch, a contract CIA agent, operating undercover as an English instructor in a private school, who is setting out on perhaps his most difficult assignment; his beautiful but slightly foolish and disaffected wife, Iris, with whom he is obsessively in love; and Davis Morel, an iconoclastic black holistic physician, who is on a personal mission to “lift the yoke of Christian belief from Africa.”

The passions of these three entangle them with a local populist leader, Samuel Kerekang, whose purposes are grotesquely misconstrued by the CIA, fixated as the agency is on the astonishing collapse of world socialism and the simultaneous, paradoxical triumph of radical black nationalism in South Africa, Botswana’s neighbor. And when a small but violent insurrection erupts in the wild northern part of the country, inspired by Kerekang but stoked by the erotic and political intrigues of the American trio—the outcome is explosive and often explosively funny.

Along the way, there are many pleasures. Letters from Ray’s brilliantly hostile brother and Iris’s woebegone sister provide a running commentary on contemporary life in America. Africa and Africans are powerfully evoked, and the expatriate scene is cheerfully skewered.

Through lives lived ardently in an unforgiving land, Mortals examines with wit and insight the dilemmas of power, religion, rebellion, and contending versions of liberation and love. It is a study of a marriage over time, and a man’s struggle to find his way when his private and public worlds are shifting. It is Norman Rush’s most commanding work.

Publish Date
Publisher
Alfred A. Knopf
Language
English
Pages
715

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Previews available in: English

Edition Availability
Cover of: Mortals
Mortals
2014, Granta Books
in English
Cover of: Mortals
Mortals
December 1, 2005, Vintage
Paperback - New Ed edition
Cover of: Mortals
Mortals
December 1, 2005, Vintage
Cover of: Mortals
Mortals
July 13, 2004, Vintage
Paperback in English
Cover of: Mortals
Mortals
2003, Alfred A. Knopf
in English - 1st ed.
Cover of: Mortals
Mortals
2003, Alfred A. Knopf
in English - 1st ed.
Cover of: Mortals
Mortals
July 3, 2003, Jonathan Cape
Cover of: Mortals
Mortals
2003, Jonathan Cape
in English
Cover of: Mortals
Mortals
2003, Knopf
Paperback in English - First Edition edition

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Book Details


Edition Notes

Published in
New York
Genre
Fiction.

Classifications

Dewey Decimal Class
813/.54
Library of Congress
PS3568.U727 M67 2003, PS3568.U727M67 2003

The Physical Object

Pagination
viii, 715 p. ;
Number of pages
715

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL3566556M
ISBN 10
0679406220
LCCN
2002043289
OCLC/WorldCat
51223562
Library Thing
168163
Goodreads
986298

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History

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March 7, 2023 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
January 7, 2023 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
November 15, 2022 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
October 8, 2021 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
April 1, 2008 Created by an anonymous user Imported from Scriblio MARC record