The Zigzag Way [Hardcover] [Jan 01, 2004] Desai, Anita - Hardcover

Desai, Anita

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0701177438 ISBN 13: 9780701177430

Publisher: Chatto & Windus, 2004

Synopsis

Eric is a youngish man, self-conscious, awkward, a buttoned-down north american, a would-be writer, and a traveller in spite of himself susceptible to bossy women, he finds himself in the wake of one in mexico, where he is overwhelmed at first with sensory overload, but is gradually seduced - by the strangeness, the colour, the contrasts, the old world- he finds himself on a curious quest for his own family in a ghost mining town, now barely inhabited, where almost a hundred years earlier young cornish miners, like his own grandfather, worked the mines until pancho villa and revolution came to mexico-desai paints a subtle, miniaturist history of 20th century mexico, seen from unexpected perspectives, that evokes the exploitation of the mexican indians while yet looking askance at some of their saviours like the formidable queen of the sierra, dona vera, widow of a mining baron and with a colourful, dubious, european past of her own with vivid sympathy and brilliantly telling detail, desai conjures up erics grandmother, and her poignant story, that of a young cornish girl whose grave is in a cemetery on a mexican hillside on the feast day of the dead, when the locals celebrate their dead, the various strands of the novel come together hauntingly, bringing eric face to face with his past and the reality of his present in a moment of quiet, powerful epiphany restrained, controlled, with splashes of exuberant colour and darker violence, this is a magical novel of strange elegiac beauty

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

From the author of Fasting, Feasting comes her visually and emotionally haunting new novel.
Eric is an uncertain, awkward young man, a would-be writer, and a traveller in spite of himself. Happy to follow his more confident girlfriend to Mexico, he is overwhelmed with sensory overload, but gradually seduced -- by the strangeness, the colour, the mysteries of an older world. He finds himself on a curious quest for his own family in a "ghost" mining town, now barely inhabited, where almost a hundred years earlier young Cornish miners worked the rich seams in the earth.
On the Dia de los Muertos, the feast day when the locals celebrate and remember their dead, the various strands of the novel come together hauntingly, bringing together past and present in a moment of quiet, powerful epiphany.

About the Author:

ANITA DESAI is the author of Fasting, Feasting, Baumgartner's Bombay, Clear Light of Day, and Diamond Dust, among other works. Three of her books have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Desai was born and educated in India and now lives in the New York City area.

About this edition

• Publisher: Chatto & Windus
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0701177438
• ISBN 13: 9780701177430
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 182