A Separation
From the Booker-shortlisted author of Audition
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2.5 • 4 Ratings
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- £3.99
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- £3.99
Publisher Description
From the award-winning author of Intimacies and Audition
'An absolutely mesmerizing work of art' Rachel Kushner
'A novel so seamless, that follows its path with such consequence, that even minor deviations seem loaded with meaning. Wonderful.' Karl Ove Knausgaard
A young woman has agreed with her faithless husband: it's time for them to separate. For the moment it's a private matter, a secret between the two of them. As she begins her new life, alone, she gets word that her ex-husband has gone missing in a remote region in the rugged southern Peloponnese. Reluctantly she agrees to go and search for him, still keeping their split to herself. In her heart, she's not even sure if she wants to find him. Adrift in the wild and barren landscape, she traces the failure of their relationship, and finds that she understands less than she thought about the man she used to love.
A story of intimacy, infidelity and compassion, A Separation is about the gulf that divides us from the lives of others and the narratives we create to mask our true emotions. As the narrator reflects upon her love for a man who may never have been what he appeared, Kitamura propels us into the experience of a woman on the brink of catastrophe. A Separation is a riveting masterpiece of absence and presence that will leave the reader astonished, and transfixed.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The unnamed narrator of Kitamura's third novel has been separated from her husband, Christopher, for six months when she travels from London to southern Greece to find him, prompted into action by Christopher's mother, who is unaware of the separation and worried because her son isn't returning phone calls. The narrator describes Athens traffic and the Peloponnesian coast, but it is her internal landscape her imaginings, suspicions, speculations, thoughts, and feelings that dominates the narrative. Habitually unfaithful Christopher has left his wife in the dark regarding much of his private life. She means to ask for a divorce, and then wavers. When she arrives at the hotel where he is registered, she delays calling his room. When Christopher fails to appear by checkout time, she takes no part in clearing out his things. When a pretty hotel receptionist turns out to be one of Christopher's lovers, the narrator buys her dinner. The narrator's deepest feeling comes not from learning the reason for Christopher's disappearance but from listening to a professional mourner's lament. Research into this mourning ritual had been Christopher's excuse for visiting Greece, although even his mother understood he also anticipated extra-marital indulgences. Kitamura suggests but never specifies the extent of these indulgences; likewise she leaves plot issues unresolved. Instead, she focuses on capturing a disarray of contradictory emotions, delineating the line between white lies and betrayal, legal and personal relationships, the impulse to hold on and the need to let go. Despite the mysterious premise, readers may find that the narrator's frequent contemplation frustratingly stalls the novel.
