African Silences is a powerful and sobering account of the cataclysmic depredation of the African landscape and its wildlife. In this critically acclaimed work Peter Matthiessen explores new terrain on a continent he has written about in two previous books, A Tree Where Man Was Born -- nominated for the National Book Award -- and Sand Rivers.
Through his eyes we see elephants, white rhinos, gorillas, and other endangered creatures of the wild. We share the drama of the journeys themselves, including a hazardous crossing of the continent in a light plane. And along the way, we learn of the human lives oppressed by bankrupt political regimes and economies, and threatened by the slow ecological catastrophe to which they have only begun to awaken.
Meet Roger, a divorced, middle-aged 'aisles associate' at a Staples outlet, condemned to restocking reams of paper for the rest of his life, and his co-worker, Bethany, who's at the end of her Goth phase and realising she's facing fifty more years of shelving Post-it notes and replenishing the Crayola boutique in Aisle Six. One day, Bethany discovers Roger's notebook in the staff room. When she opens it up, she discovers that this old guy who she's never considered to be quite human is writing mock diary entries pretending to be her - and weirdly, he's getting it right. She learns he has a tragedy in his past, and suddenly he no longer seems like a paper-stocking robot in a red shirt and a name tag. These two retail workers then strike up an unlikely yet touching secret correspondence. As their lives unfold, so too do the characters of Roger's work-in-progress, the oddly titled Glove Pond, a Cheever-era novella gone horribly, horribly wrong. On every page of this wise, witty and unforgettable novel, Coupland reminds us that love, death and eternal friendship can all occur where and when we least expect them and that, even after tragedy has hit, one can still find solace in the comedy and strange comforts of modern life.
ISBN: 9780747591887
Pages: 275
Trade paperback
Bloomsbury, 2007
Good condition; cover has some small creases
B153
