Glorious Boy
Bound by ambition and a sense of adventure, Claire and Shep Durant journey to the Andaman Islands, a remote part of colonial India, in 1936. They dive deep into their work: Claire, an anthropologist, is studying the language and customs of the Biya tribe; Shep, a surgeon, is collecting orchid specimens, hoping for significant medicinal applications. Claire’s plans change when she becomes pregnant and gives birth to Ty, whose ability to speak never materializes and whose bond to Claire and Shep seems weaker than his attachment to Naila, a household employee. When the war escalates, the Andamans become a target, and the Durants prepare to evacuate–but Ty goes missing. Against her will, Claire goes on without her son and husband. The search for Ty is fraught with more danger than Shep could have ever imagined, and Claire must figure out how she can help from her new post in Calcutta. As the war churns on and hope dwindles, the entire family—biological and otherwise—will be forced to question their allegiances and obligations, and to determine what place is, for them, truly home.
With a mesmerizing setting and transporting detail, Glorious Boy balances tropical beauty with raw, physical risk, and dives deep into grim truths about parental love and the power and limitation of language. This is a page-turner, sometimes violent but always revelatory. Readers won’t easily forget the trials this young couple faces, or the landscape that changes them all.
Author | Aimee Liu |
---|---|
Star Count | 5/5 |
Format | Trade |
Page Count | 344 pages |
Publisher | Red Hen Press |
Publish Date | 2020-05-12 |
ISBN | 9781597098892 |
Bookshop.org | Buy this Book |
Issue | May 2020 |
Category | Popular Fiction |
Share |
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.