Up Against The Night

Description

Frank McAllister has long since dropped "Retief" as his middle name, but the legacy of his family's history proves harder to shake. His ancestor Piet Retief, leader of the South African Great Trek, was killed by Zulu king Dingane in the 1838 massacre, along with a hundred men, women, and children. Afrikaner legend paints Retief as a homegrown Moses, bringing his people to the Promised Land. But Frank believes something rotten lies at the core of this family myth.Frank spends his days in his London home with his new partner and her son and the products of his wealth. But the return of his daughter, Lucinda, from rehab in California brings him intense guilt: having sided with him during his divorce from her mother, she crumbled under the weight of the bitter separation. Lucinda has brought home with her a mysterious boy, and they will join the family trip to Frank's beach house in South Africa--not far from the site of the 1838 massacre. In the lulls of their idyllic days, Frank unravels what really happened on that fateful day, and how it may connect to the violence of the apartheid years, and the violence encroaching on them even now."Up Against the Night" is an enthralling tale of personal conflict and intrigue, set against the backdrop of South Africa's tangled past and troubled present, and told with tremendous color and insight. Absolutely original and gripping, it is destined to be as influential as JM Coetzee's "Disgrace."

Promotion info

From Whitbread Novel Award-winning and Booker Prize-shortlisted author Justin Cartwright comes an intimate exploration of one man's relationship with South Africa and its turbulent history

Reviews

Justin Cartwright is one of our best novelists Daily Telegraph Few living British novelists write English fiction quite as well as Cartwright -- Eileen Battersby Irish Times One of our finest novelists Independent This is Cartwright at his best, delivering a strong story with skill and feeling Mail on Sunday Cartwright is as accomplished as anyone writing fiction today Scotsman He's very good. He has such control, every sentence. Such ease. -- Jim Crace Irish Times A story where emotions are inescapably linked to the land of one's birth and paradise is spoilt by the worm in the bud. Brilliant The Lady

Author description

Justin Cartwright's novels include the Booker-shortlisted In Every Face I Meet, the Whitbread Novel Award-winner Leading the Cheers, the acclaimed White Lightning, shortlisted for the 2002 Whitbread Novel Award, The Promise of Happiness, selected for the Richard Judy Book Club and winner of the 2005 Hawthornden Prize, The Song Before It Is Sung, To Heaven By Water, Other People's Money, winner of the Spears novel of the year and, most recently, the acclaimed Lion Heart. Justin Cartwright was born in South Africa and lives in London. @justincartwrig1