From Publishers Weekly
Set in Uganda in the months leading up to Idi Amin's coup d'?tat in 1971, Shand's debut novel chronicles the domestic life of Agnes, an American expatriate and part-time teacher. A devoted mother of three, Agnes is locked in an unfulfilling marriage with John, a college teacher and Lutheran deacon who tells her that she can and must will herself to love him. But Agnes dreams of passion, eventually entering an affair with Wulf, a Polish professor and colleague of her husband, as the political structure of Uganda grows daily more unstable. The dramatic political upheaval that looms in the novel's background intrudes little into Agnes's personal drama. As a narrator, she is extremely articulate on the subject of her emotional life, yet almost entirely mute about the events occurring in the country around her; information about changing social tides are gleaned through local rumor and gossip. But the plot is secondary in this dreamy novel; more important are the well-controlled writing and the detailed character descriptions that demand that readers pay attention to every word. Most chapters are constructed almost as a meditation, opening with a brief second-person, semi-instructional essay on African life, followed by a vignette extrapolating the essay's moral and philosophical musings. The novel is rife with luxurious passages of poetic prose, and though Shand chooses to downplay the drama of the Ugandan political landscape, she succeeds admirably in presenting Agnes's quotidian struggles to assimilate with African culture and to cope with her loveless marriage. (May)
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From Booklist
Shand's tensely erotic debut novel is set in Uganda during Idi Amin's rise to power. Agnes, an American teacher, is trapped in a loveless marriage to John, a minister. Although she is devoted to her children, she often fantasizes about the men she meets. Then, when John unknowingly befriends one of these men and invites him to a party, Agnes' daydreams take root in the real world. Agnes' affair with Wulf, a Polish researcher, is paralleled by John's affair with a young Ugandan student, who eventually denounces him for seducing her under the pretext of being her "spiritual advisor." Agnes' relationship with Wulf, meanwhile, reflects her love for Uganda and the way of life that she has adopted as her own. In the friction between Agnes and John, Shand reveals the insidious political conflicts that made Amin's bloody coup possible. Writing with intensity and passion, Shand deftly examines issues of morality and sexuality within the context of conflicting cultural standards.
Bonnie JohnstonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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