Foreign Land: A Novel

By Jonathan Raban

Book Overview

From the bestselling, award-winning author of Bad Land comes a quirky and insightful novel of what can happen when one can and does go home again.

"Raban's achievements in this novel are nothing short of awesome." --The Washington Post

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 Land is an exquisitely moving tale of awkward relationships and quiet redemption.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375725946
• ISBN13: 9780375725944
• Release Date: December 2001
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.2" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Haunting poignant tale with a fantastic end.

There are many books that are rivals for the award of best beginning, but this is definitely my vote for the best ever ending of a novel. Obviously I can't tell you the end, because that would spoil it, but the end of this book has kept me thinking for years since I read it. The story itself is low key, an aging man who has spent his productive years abroad and finds no solace in returning home. He decides to head off into the teeth of a rebellion rather than vegetate in the country of his birth. The novel is well written, with the nautical detail that you would expect from Raban. It is a book written at the pace of the central character, a little slow reflecting his age and the age in which he grew up. Believe me, though, this is one you want to finish, The ending is just brilliant.