Season of the Jew - Hardcover

Shadbolt, Maurice

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393024318 ISBN 13: 9780393024319

Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc, 1987

Synopsis

Slight shelf wear. Pages are clean and binding is tight. Solid Book.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

Based on a gory series of skirmishes near Wellington between 1868 and 1869, this novel combines a knockout of a war story, a tour of as yet unexploited Maori country, an account of British imperialism and a portrait of native life and customs to create a vivid pageant of colonial New Zealand. The author, a leading novelist in that country, lives close to the spot where most of the action takes place and quickly draws the reader into this compelling landscape. At the center is a feud between British officer George Fairweather and the greedy mission-educated Maori Kooti, Jehovah's self-appointed spokesman, who rampages through villages garroting the tribesmen, raping and disemboweling their women, setting fire to houses and arrogating the colonists' land to himself. The two had once been friends; Fairweather becomes Kooti's implacable enemy after the Maori conscripts an innocent young native under the officer's protection, an act that eventually leads to the youth's execution for high treason to a queen he's never heard of. A broad canvas of beautifully articulated characters, a tender, credible love story and a searing climatic trial scene make this a novel readers won't soon forget.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Based on historical fact, this is a wonderful story of little-known events and characters in the dramatic 19th-century colonial history of New Zealand. Lieutenant George Fairweather, late of her Majesty's British Imperial Army, has resigned his commission and journeyed east to Poverty Bay, seeking new vistas to paint and hoping to resume his relationship with a half-caste Maori woman. Ever on the outside looking in, a man who shies away from permanent ties, Fairweather is enlisted in the defense of the colonists, against the rebel Kooti and his followers, who liken themselves to the Israelites cast out of Egypt, led by a new Moses. Tough and tragic, this novel powerfully explores some universal themes: the futility of war and the rights of the conqueror and the conquered. It deserves a wide audience. Highly recommended. Lydia Burruel Johnson, Mesa P.L., Ariz.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0393024318
• ISBN 13: 9780393024319
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 384