Absolution

Synopsis
Literary bigwig Clare Wald hires an unknown named Sam Leroux to write her official biography. The one thing Clare won't talk to Sam about is her daughter Laura, an anti-apartheid activist who disappeared in 1989. Both Sam and Clare (almost literally) have skeletons in their closets, which are revealed as the story plods to an ending that is whatever the opposite of thrilling is.

My thoughts
I was so excited about this book. It was supposed to be one of the best debut novels of 2012. It's set in South Africa and has the hook of a missing person mystery set against the backdrop of the fall of apartheid. Unfortunately, it read like an incoherent echo of Ian McEwan's Atonement.

The most frustrating aspect of this book was that neither of the characters had committed any real sins that needed to be absolved. Contrast that with Atonement, where (spoiler alert) the central character told a lie that led to all sorts of awful things and then everyone died in World War II before she could atone for it. Both books also use the novel-within-a-novel conceit, but Absolution muddles it with present-day narration from both Sam and Clare plus flashbacks to Sam's past PLUS Clare's imaginings of Laura's last days. It's ambitious, but it's too much.

I did finish this book, but I didn't read every word - I skimmed a lot of the last third. There was a lot about Clare's garden and I'm not sure what the last 50 pages were for. They didn't reveal anything new to me - they rehashed what Sam had learned and provided some closure for Sam and Clare, but I didn't care about that because I didn't care about them.

Absolution takes a bleak view of present-day South Africa. The apartheid regime was truly horrifying, but both sides committed atrocities. The scars of apartheid, like the scars of slavery in the United States, will be with us for many generations. I knew that in the back of my mind, but it was something else entirely to realize how that still impacts everyday life in South Africa. I always like "traveling" to other places when I read, and this book was no exception.

Bottom line
Read Atonement if you're after a mechanically perfect story. Watch Cry Freedom if you want to learn more about apartheid South Africa. Read J.M. Coetzee or Nadine Gordimer for outstanding South African literature.

Fine print
Absolution, by Patrick Flanery
Genre: fiction
Photo from Goodreads
I borrowed this book from my library.