The Cloths of Heaven [Jan]
Synopsis
West Africa in the early 1990s. Isabel Redmond is tiring of her iconoclastic husband’s penchant for pendulous black breasts; the High Commissioner and his wife Fenella are both enjoying illicit affairs; an old English judge is wandering through the scrub following a tribe of Fulani herdsmen; Bob Newpin is about to make a killing in timeshares; and just what Father Seamus is up to is anyone’s guess. Enter new diplomat Daniel Maddison on his first posting abroad. Rebelling against the endless rounds of cocktail parties, golf and gossip, he finds himself drawn to people and places that lie way beyond the experience of his High Commission colleagues – and specifically to the dusty warehouse in the heart of the city where a thin white woman is silently measuring out lengths of brightly coloured cloth.
Author's Biography
Sue Eckstein worked for VSO for many years in London, Bhutan and the Gambia. Now a lecturer at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, she is also working on a PhD in autobiographical fiction at the University of Sussex. Her plays include The Tuesday Group, first performed in London in 2003, Kaffir Lilies ("Really wonderful – a first rate production" Nell Dunn), Laura and Old School Ties ("Sparky and intriguing, written and performed with a real edge" Guardian) all for BBC Radio 4. This is her first novel. The Cloths of Heaven is to be serialised as a dramatisation on Woman’s Hour (Radio 4) in March 2010.
Reviews
"Populated by a cast of miscreants and misfits this debut novel by playwright Eckstein is a darkly comic delight." Choice
"One of those brilliant books that offers an easy, entertaining read in the first instance, only to worm its way deeper into your mind. A modern Graham Greene – fabulous...fictional gold." The Argus
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