Book description
Far away from the city of his birth, in a frontier town on the edge of
tribal wilderness, a doctor tries to resolve the seemingly
unreconcilable demands of his public career and his personal feelings.
He believes his exile her to be temporary, and youthful memories of the
distant city torment him with an unbearable sense of loss. Yet he has
grown to love a fellow exile, a woman of fierce independence and strong
will, who belongs by nature to the warmth and chaos of the frontier?
But, during a summer of drought and disease, the desert erupts into
savagery and he is at last confronted by the choice of returning to the
city or of remaining with her. Colin Thubron was born in 1939, and
worked in publishing before travelling in North Africa, the Middle East,
Russia and China.
