From Amazon.com
Tucker Malarkey's accomplished first novel follows the trail of a young anthropology researcher as she tries to locate her beloved elderly mentor, who appears to be missing. Ingrid Holtz knows that Professor Templeton has been searching for clues to the existence of an African king who he believes brought monotheism to the Swahili Coast as much as three centuries before the arrival of Islam, paving the way for the quick conversion of the region. She worries that Templeton (a figure not unlike her father) may be losing his mind, or that he has put himself in danger. Although there is a European enclave on the island of Pelat, none of the colonials seem especially helpful to Ingrid. They barely know Templeton, who avoided their hangout at the Salama Hotel bar, and what little they know his student must slowly prize free over afternoon beers. The natives and the Kenyan-born whites are another matter; they know a great deal, she suspects, but she must constantly battle their sexism and their distrust.
One night Ingrid goes to the Salama with notes from Templeton's journals, hoping to attract the assistance of Finn Bergmann, a handsome yet chronically drunk and evasive European-Kenyan, whose father built the Salama Hotel. But Bergmann slinks away, and Ingrid is left writing anguished, talismanic notes on a cocktail napkin: "Templeton, I need you. Please appear."
She let the ink of her pen bleed onto the words until they were illegible, suddenly certain that he was not coming. She finished her whiskey and, when she felt the panic surging back, ordered another. What are you afraid of, Ingrid? Tricks of momentum? Why have you come all this way?
Ingrid is left to find her own strange allies on the island, as well as unexpected enemies. Along the way, she must continue to adjust her ideas of what it means to be a woman and alone, surrounded by people who believe in the unseen and who watch her for signs of possession by an evil spirit. The real question is whether Malarkey's heroine is the sheep or the shepherd in her search for the elusive Templeton. Despite a few stock characters and some stiff, unlikely dialogue,
An Obvious Enchantment offers suspenseful, escapist reading for a lazy Sunday or a dark and stormy night.
--Regina Marler
From Publishers Weekly
Religious mysticism, cultural anthropology and contemporary women's issues charge Malarkey's affecting first novel, an uncommon romance charting the restless intellect of an obsessive academic. Cultural anthropologist Ingrid Holtz convinces her university to fund a trip to Kenya's Swahili Coast, ostensibly to search for links between Egypt's monotheistic pharaoh Akhenaten and African Islam. Her ulterior motive is to search for her mentor, 60-year-old mad genius Nick Templeton, who has disappeared on a coastal island while investigating the origins of African Islam. The island of Pelat is itself a mystery: a cat-infested paradise torn between ancient tradition and modern progress since Swede Henrik Bergmann arrived many years before with his young son, Finn, and built the luxury hotel Salama (the Swahili word for peace). When Ingrid reaches the island, Stanley Wicks, an unscrupulous Brit, is erecting a new hotel in the village where devout islanders fled after Salama was built. Finn, raised by a local mystic, must seek middle ground in the battle between ancient mysteries and inevitable change; he keeps a protective eye on Ingrid as she looks for Templeton and finds her way to academic and personal growth. Ingrid and Templeton's research, guided by suspicious locals, barflies at Salama and passages of the Koran, gets foggy, sucking some thrill from the novel's final revelations. But Ingrid is a complex and seductive character who transcends those deficits, and her romance with Finn mostly sidesteps formula. Her preoccupation with truth invests this multifaceted, ambitious debut with a contemporary relevance. 7-city author tour. (Aug.) FYI: Malarkey is senior editor at the quarterly Tin House.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
