The Devil's Chimney: A Novel - Hardcover

Landsman, Anne

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1569471010 ISBN 13: 9781569471012

Publisher: Soho Pr Inc, 1997

Synopsis

In Oudtshoorn, South Africa, Connie Lambrecht lives in the shadow of the vast Cango Caves. In the depths of one of the eerie passages they call the Devil's Chimney, a young colored servant girl once vanished. Connie is haunted by this mystery, and by the story of an upper-class Englishwoman, Miss Beatrice, whose quixotic attempt to raise ostriches at the turn of the century on a farm near this dusty provicial town led to terrible misfortune.
In recounting the tales of these two women, Connie finally discovers the deepest secret of her own life and the truth about her ghost-filled past.

About this title

Review:

In Anne Landsman's complex debut novel , The Devil's Chimney, middle-aged Connie Lambrecht lives a life of quiet desperation in a rural South African outpost called Oudtshoorn, where she runs a dog kennel, quietly suffers the abuse of her weak-willed husband Jack, and drinks to excess. Faced with such unremitting misery, it's no wonder that Connie becomes obsessed with two stories from the past: first, the disappearance of a colored servant girl in the Cango Caves, and second, an upper-class Englishwoman's doomed attempt to run an ostrich farm nearby. As Connie attempts to reconstruct these narratives, they intertwine with her own in an increasingly feverish--and sometimes confusing--way. Landsman writes with dreamlike intensity, and her novel is strongly influenced by magical realism. Yet The Devil's Chimney is also a meditation on the very real dichotomies of race and gender in South Africa--as well as the tension between passion and terror.

About the Author:

Anne Landsman teaches screenwriting at The New School for Social Research.

About this edition

• Publisher: Soho Pr Inc
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 1569471010
• ISBN 13: 9781569471012
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 292