The Letter Bearer
A Novel
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
The Rider has no memory of who he is, where he is, or how he came to be lying—dying— in the brutal heat of the North African desert. Rescued by a band of deserters, the Rider begins to piece together his identity, based on shards of recollection and the letters in his mailbag. The Letter Bearer is unlike any other novel of World War Two. In the midst of profound trauma, terrible warfare, and the nameless experience of desertion, this gripping story asks us to consider how men build hope when they have nothing left—not even a name.
When first published last year in London, Robert Allison's debut novel was met with wide praise and was nominated for the Desmond Elliott Prize, described by one of its judges as "'An excellent and elegant novel written with patience and authority . . ." Readers of Michael Ondaatje and Paul Bowles will find the landscape familiar, but no reader will ever forget the haunting and haunted story of this remarkable victim.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Allison's poetic first novel, which breathes fresh life into World War II fiction, an English rider is blown off his motorcycle in the North African desert, his only possession a mailbag. Badly wounded, with no memory and no identification on his person, he is eventually found by a group of deserters an officer, a driver, and a medic, all British, and a Canadian tanker and an Italian POW who take him in and see to his wounds. When his memory fails to return, the rider goes through the mailbag and begins reading letters in the hopes that one of them will jog his memory. Once spotted, the deserters decide to move on and head for possible safety in the Akhdar Mountains. Along the way, they acquire an abandoned American tank and are forced to contend with German patrols, hostile local tribesmen, Italian stragglers, and their own internecine conflicts. Amid it all, the rider, not trusted by his fellow travelers, fights to regain his memory and set a course for himself. The narrative is filled with harrowing confrontations and memorable scenes illustrating the follies of war, all punctuated by heart-shattering letters between soldiers and their loved ones back home. This novel is ultimately a stunning combination of muscular action and penetrating self-examination.
