Items related to The Night Battles
Synopsis
[Read by Carrington MacDuffie]
Haunted by her recent and distant past, an American historian returns to the Sicily of her childhood to do research, but she finds the small village haunted by invisible forces as well.
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About the Author
M. F. Bloxam has lived in Sicily and the United States and is currently residing on New Hampshire's coastline. She is the author of prizewinning short fiction and creative nonfiction. A background in anthropology and museum work informs her writing.
Review
M.F. Bloxam's debut novel, The Night Battles (Permanent Press 2008), uses a nuanced blend of history, legend, and mythology to explore the ways in which the past will always haunt the present. On the run from wreckage of a career in academia, the novel's protagonist, Joan Severance, escapes to Valparuta, Sicily, where she expects to put her skills as a historian to good use. The town's archives are a treasure-trove of minutia from the lives of the long-dead, and while the records she uncovers reveal much about the lives of those who have gone before her, it's the peculiar absences of information that lead to the biggest mysteries surrounding Valparuta. As her investigation deepens, Severance learns that the town has been the scene of an ongoing battle between the forces of good and evil for countless generations --and that this battle has taken place not on the physical plane, but on an astral one.
One thing that makes this novel stand out is is that while its heroine is a historian, she neither falls into the Dan Brown "Da Vinci Code" mold of adventurer-historian, nor is she a female Indiana Jones. That is , Bloxam doesn't attempt to wow her readers with vaguely scandalous information about the true identity of the Mona Lisa, and she's not especially interested in giving the world yet another action hero. Rather, Severance is more in line with James Axton, the protagonist of Don Delillo's "The Names" who, like Severance, discovers hidden, haunting meaning in the forces of history and ruminates upon that meaning in intelligent and thought-provoking ways. Emotionally stunted in many respects, Severance is not just on a quest to discover the truth about Valparuta; she's on a quest to discover her own humanity.
None of this, of course, is to say that the novel is purely a character study. Indeed, The Night Battles takes many unexpected twists and turns, and what drives it forward is both the sense of mystery that Bloxam has given to the town of Valparuta and the silent longing for some kind of emotional depth that she has given her protagonist. In short, The Night Battles is a work of beauty, a curious cross between Umberto Ecco and Neil Gaiman--mysterious, moody, and highly engaging. --Marc Schuster, Small Press Reviews
...The Night Battles is a haunting book, an unusual literary accomplishment and a sobering, perhaps disturbing, reminder that in many parts of the 21st century-world people live by standards, mores and values that have nothing to do with our own. --The Independent
Failed academic Joan Severance flees to Sicily to visit the extraordinary archives newly opened in the remote town of Valparuta. It is the country of her mother, a famous crime-scene photographer who was murdered by the Mafia. Joan is totally taken with chief archivist Cosimo Chiesa, a mysterious figure who appears to have a drug problem. Carrying emotional problems of her own, Joan finds a real kinship with Cosimo, who shares her passion for research and for old books, and the two become lovers. She slowly discovers that all of the men in the town, Cosimo chief among them, belong to the benandanti, a cult of spirits charged with protecting the harvest. He enters into night battles that leave him bruised, bloody, and exhausted. Then Joan learns that she herself seems to have a similar calling. Bloxam, in a highly original debut novel, slowly and skillfully deploys a violent alternate reality. And she renders the eerie happenings in such careful and elegant prose that the novel s style becomes as much of an enticement as its substance. --Booklist
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- PublisherBlackstone Audiobooks
- Publication date2012
- ISBN 10 1433262908
- ISBN 13 9781433262906
- BindingAudio CD
- LanguageEnglish
- Rating
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