An edition of Mortals (2003)

Mortals

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Last edited by OCLC Bot
April 30, 2011 | History
An edition of Mortals (2003)

Mortals

New Ed edition
  • 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
Vintage
Pages
640

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

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Book Details


First Sentence

"At least whatever was wrong was recent, Ray kept telling himself, he realized."

The Physical Object

Format
Paperback
Number of pages
640

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL9272932M
ISBN 10
0099452359
ISBN 13
9780099452355
OCLC/WorldCat
56447591
Library Thing
168163

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History

Download catalog record: RDF / JSON / OPDS | Wikipedia citation
April 30, 2011 Edited by OCLC Bot Added OCLC numbers.
August 12, 2010 Edited by IdentifierBot added LibraryThing ID
April 14, 2010 Edited by Open Library Bot Linked existing covers to the edition.
December 15, 2009 Edited by WorkBot link works
April 30, 2008 Created by an anonymous user Imported from amazon.com record