Charades

There seems to be no end to the great stories that Mr. Hospital spins. In this, her fifth book, a young woman named Charade Ryan from the Australian rainforest travels to Canada, then to Boston in search of her English father Nicholas Truman. Her earthy mother, Bea Ryan, mother of ten children by as many men, at first offers little help in this young woman's quest as she advises her daughter to "let sleeping dogs lie." But as we have come to expect by now, in Ms. Hospital's stories things are seldom as they seem. This writer's trademarks are all here: (1) the many references to other literary works and quotations from other writers: Captain Cook, Robert Oppenheimer, Primo Levi, Jorge Luis Borges, Claudine Vegh's I DIDN'T SAY GOODBYE: INTERVIEWS WITH CHILDREN OF THE HOLOCAUST and finally THE BOOK OF THE THOUSAND NIGHTS AND ONE NIGHT-- it becomes apparent that Charade is a modern day Scheherazade as she tells parts of her story night after night to the older MIT physics professor Koenig in an effort to make their affair last. (2) As always, Ms. Hospital writes about serious subjects: memory-- that the process of recollection is imperfect at best-- the Holocaust, a child's continuing effort to know her parents. (3) Of course, this author teases us with her prose-- "What quantumleaped me?"-- and (4) makes profound statements about relationships: ". . . a marriage has begun to end long before one partner moves out." "On the other hand. . . a marriage certainly does not end with the final decree of the divorce." And finally: "It is impossible to live with someone who is deeply and dangerously unhappy. And it is even harder to leave. . ." This novel is at once cerebral but also deeply emotional. You won't be able to put it down.

If you want a trip to where the arcane world of new physics meets the tropical wonderland of northern Australia, Janette Hospital Turner will take you there. Her Australian character is in search of her father at a university in the United States and spins in and out of a professor's life like an electron knocked out of its orbit. The story also takes you into her past, and her family's past, to a dead man in the woods who she befriends, to rural Australia with all its toughness and lushness. A book to be savoured, not least for its kick-in-the-pants twist at the end.

This book, as does most of her stuff, will turn your world view upside down. Do you feel secure in what you believe? How do you know? Like taking LSD in book form. Read 'Borderline', 'The Last Magician', 'Tiger in the Tiger Pit', for a similar experience. Janette - e-mail me

As is usually the case with Hospital, you start out slow and even a bit bored - but continue on and soon you find yourself saying "wow" at both the plot and the prose. "Spellbinding" is frequently used for alot of fiction in general, - for Hospital it fits. This is one you will sit down and read again as if taking a trip to a private magical place