Noontide Toll
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
In postwar Sri Lanka, a hired driver observes his passengers—tourists, soldiers, businessmen, and others—in these linked stories by a "master storyteller" (The New York Times).
Vasantha retired early, bought himself a van, and now works as a driver for hire. As he drives through Sri Lanka, carrying aid workers, entrepreneurs, and visiting families; meeting lonely soldiers and eager hoteliers, he engages them with self-deprecating wit and folksy wisdom—while revealing to us their uncertain lives with piercing insight.
On his journey from the army camps in northern Jaffna to the moonlit ramparts of Galle, in the south, Vasantha slowly discovers the depth of his country's troubles—as well as his own—while catching a glimmer of the promise the future might hold.
From the Booker Prize–shortlisted author of Reef comes a collection of "gracefully crafted road stories" that draws a potent portrait of postwar Sri Lanka and the ghosts of civil war (TheGuardian).
Praise for Romesh Gunesekera
"Monkfish Moon strikes the reader like a hammer blow. . . . Gunesekera's subtly erotic prose animates Sri Lanka's natural luxuriance, veined with menace." —Voice Literary Supplement
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Guneskera's (Monkfish Moon) newest work is a cross between a collection of stories and a novel. The chapters are both self-contained stories and a larger arc of reflections and revelations related to the protagonist, Vasantha. Set in 2009, two years after the Sri Lankan Civil War, Vasantha buys a van with his retirement money and becomes a driver. He drives an array of individuals from Jaffna's army camps to Galle. Through his encounters with them, traversing through a country trying to recover, he learns about their experiences. Episodic rather than plot-driven, the writing is smooth, spare, with exquisite detail. Vasantha meets everyone from a solider afraid to tell the girl he loves that he killed her brother in war to a honeymooning couple horrified that the place in which Leonard Woolf wrote about will be renovated to be a modern resort, even after surviving the tsunami. Guneskera's powerful prose keeps the reader turning the page, with images and emotions resonating long after the story ends.
