From Publishers Weekly
In Graham Greene's short story "The Lottery Ticket," a na?ve American tries to assist a Third World country and instead sows discord and pain. The same thing happens to heiress Molly Benson, the main character in Emerson's sobering first novel. Molly has long been obsessed with the English author, and especially with his feeling for the Third World; she met Greene in Antibes in 1977, and has corresponded with him since. (The bits of Greene's letters included here are really his, a preface statesAhe sent them "to an American friend.") Molly's brother, Harry, a political journalist, diedAnobly, she believesAin Central America, in 1981. The narrative begins in 1991 with Greene's own death, which proves another turning point in Molly's life: she decides to travel to Algeria "in the hope of rescuing a few writers there." There, Molly, accompanied by a childhood friend and a British graduate student she met in a bookstore, descends upon two monks, one the brother-in-law of her mother's hairdresser. Selfish in their intended selflessness, the well-meaning Americans disrupt the monks' lives, inspire a violent uprising in the casbah and end up endangering the people they came to save. Her Algerian experiences force Molly to confront reality, and undermine her ideas about her brother and about Greene. Emerson's nonfiction includes Winners & Losers (about the Vietnam War, and a National Book Award winner) and Gaza: A Year in the Intifada. Obviously, her travels and her research inform this fascinating chronicle of Algeria's political plight in the early '90s. Greene's devotees will enjoy the ways in which Emerson's prose and plots respond to Greene'sAa touch of The Quiet American here, a bit of The Power and the Glory there. But MollyAher stubborn na?vet?, her self-importance and her eventual disillusionAwill be the focus of the readers' attention. In Emerson's hands, she is both pathetic and sympathetic. At the same time, the novel raises provocative questions about "benign" tourism, politics and charity, questions about good intentions and about unintended, disastrous effects. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Library Journal
Emerson has written about morally complex political situations beforeDmost notably in Winners and Losers, a study of Vietnam that won a National Book Award for nonfiction in 1978. Her latest is an ambitious but flawed novel that again tackles complex political material. Protagonist Molly Benson idolizes writer Graham Greene and his celebrated courage to confront injustice. Inspired by Greene, she travels to Algeria in the early 1990s in a misguided attempt to secure protection for an Algerian writer at a time when Muslim groups and government forces are clashing violently. Unfortunately, Molly is the novel's main weakness. Her character is often a mere caricature of the na vely idealistic, dangerously uninformed American. At other times, however, she is presented heroically, risking bodily harm for a cause she believes in. The reader is left puzzled by her personality and unsure how to respond to the principles she champions. Not recommended.
-DPatrick Sullivan, Manchester Community Coll., CT Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
