Book description
Four young women are brutally attacked in a convent near an all-black
town in America in the mid-1970s. The inevitability of this attack, and
the attempts to avert it, lie at the heart of PARADISE. Spanning the
birth of the Civil Rights movement, Vietnam, the counter culture and the
politics of the late 1970s, deftly manipulating past, present and
future, this novel of mysterious motives reveals the interior lives of
the citizens of the town with astonishing clarity. The drama of its
people - from the four young women and their elderly protector, to
conservative businessmen, rednecks, a Civil Rights minister and veterans
of three wars - richly evokes clashes that have bedevilled American
society: between race and racelessness; patriarchy and matriarchy;
religion and magic; freedom and belonging; promiscuity and fidelity.
Magnificent in its scope, PARADISE is a revelation in the intensity of
its potrayal of human complexity and in the sheer force of its
narrative.
