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From Jonathan Raban, the award--winning author of Bad LandandPassage to Juneau, comes this quirky and insightful story of what can happen when one can and does go home again.For the past thirty years, George Grey has been a ship bunker in the fictional west African nation of Montedor, but now he's returning home to England-to a daughter who's a famous author he barely knows, to a peculiar new friend who back in the sixties was one of England's more famous singers, and to the long and empty days of retirement during which he's easy prey to the melancholy of memories, all the more acute since the woman he loves is still back in Africa. Witty, charming and masterly crafted,Foreign Landis an exquisitely moving tale of awkward relationships and quiet redemption.
After three decades of self-imposed exile in West Africa, George Grey returns to an England that feels entirely alien to him. George must navigate the complexities of reconnecting with a daughter who has become a famous author, managing the isolation of retirement, and maintaining a long-distance relationship with the woman he left behind in Montedor. The narrative follows his struggle to reconcile his past identity with the reality of his present, often highlighting the friction between his memories and the shifting social landscape of his homeland. Through a third-person perspective, the story examines the quiet, often uncomfortable process of re-entry into a life that has moved on without him.
Foreign Land is characterized by its precise, observational prose and its focus on the internal life of a man caught between two worlds. The narrative suggests a deep interest in the mechanics of exile and the difficulty of returning to a place that no longer feels like home. Readers likely find the portrayal of George Grey to be a study in quiet endurance and the complexities of late-life transitions. The work stands as an exploration of how personal history shapes one's perception of the present, offering a measured look at the search for redemption in the mundane.
Page Count:
256
Publication Date:
1985-01-01
Publisher:
Collins Harvill
ISBN-10:
0002229188
ISBN-13:
9780002229180
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