FROM THE HEAT OF DAY - Softcover

Heath, Roy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006540864 ISBN 13: 9780006540861

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers, 1984

Synopsis

The domination of the Tanu has been broken. In the aftermath of cataclysm, Aiken Drum seizes the hour to grasp control of the Pilocene world. There are those, human and Tanu, who rally to him - and those who fear and hate him. .

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

In 1920s Georgetown, Guyana, young Sonny Armstrong woos Gladys Davis, youngest daughter of a family from the better part of town. His dreams of becoming a writer and his sweet ardor win Gladys; they marry and move to the countryside. In very short chapters, Guyanese writer Heath ( The Murderer ) alternates Sonny's and Gladys's points of view. Sonny's salary as postmaster enables them to live fairly well; they have two healthy children and move back to town. After a third child dies in infancy, Gladys suffers depression, Sonny strays a bit, and the marriage begins to unravel. When Sonny loses his job in the Depression, the final disintegration sets in. Heath's prose is at once beautifully spare and psychologically dense. The couple's pain and longing are vividly rendered, and their acceptance of their fate almost provides a happy ending--each has a kind of epiphany--before a final tragedy shatters all. Readers will care deeply about these complex characters and look forward to the American publication of the remaining two novels in Heath's Armstrong family trilogy.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

In the first five pages of this novel, set in Georgetown, Guyana, Sonny Armstrong courts Gladys Davis and marries her. On the next page, four years pass and two children are born. The remainder of the book considers how the marriage fails. Unfortunately, the beginning of the marriage is so briefly described that the reader feels little concern when it falls apart. By the time Sonny reaches an epiphany, it is too late for the marriage, and its impact is reduced to a cliche: you never know what you have until you lose it. The predictable plot of this novel, the first in a trilogy about the Armstrong family, is redeemed only by the glimpse that Heath ( The Murderer , LJ 3/1/92) offers into Guyanese society.
- Joanne Snapp, Virginia Commonwealth Univ., Richmond
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Publication date: 1984
• ISBN 10: 0006540864
• ISBN 13: 9780006540861
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English