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Published Mar 2021
288 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
From National Book Award–nominated writer Andrea Lee comes a gorgeously evocative epic about love, clashing cultures, and identity, set in the tropical African island nation of Madagascar.
"People do mysterious things when they think they've found paradise," reflects Shay, the heroine of Red Island House. When Shay, a Black American professor who's always had an adventurous streak, marries Senna, an Italian businessman, she doesn't imagine that her life's greatest adventure will carry her far beyond their home in Milan to an idyllic stretch of beach in Madagascar, where Senna builds a flamboyant vacation villa. Before she knows it, Shay has become the somewhat reluctant mistress of a sprawling household, caught between her privileged American upbringing and her connection to the continent of her ancestors.
At first, she's content to be an observer of the passionate affairs and fierce rivalries around her, but over twenty tumultuous years of marriage, as she and Senna raise children and establish their own rituals at the house, Shay finds herself drawn ever deeper into a place where a blend of magic, sexual intrigue, and transgression forms a modern-day parable of colonial conquest. Soon the collision of cultures comes right to Shay's door, forcing her to make a life-altering decision that will change her and Senna's lives forever.
A captivating, powerful, and profoundly moving novel about marriage and loyalty, identity and freedom, Red Island House showcases an extraordinary literary voice and an extravagantly lush, enchanted world
"Against a background of myth and magic, as well as racism, sex tourism, and exploitation, the never-perfect match between Senna and Shay continues to devolve. An utterly captivating, richly detailed, and highly critical vision of how the one percent lives in neocolonial paradise." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Brilliant and tragic." - Booklist (starred review)
"If the plotting is episodic, the writing is vivid: 'the first caress of tropical air' is 'like an infant's hand on the face,' and Shay's fond reflections on Bertine are especially moving. Things ebb and flow, but the overall impact is quietly powerful." - Publishers Weekly
"A mesmerizing novel...The lush natural habitat and privileged ex-pat existence contrast starkly with the island's poverty and traditions, and Lee makes magic of this to deliver a singularly intriguing and mysterious saga that casts an enduring spell." - O Magazine, Most Anticipated Books of 2021
"Lee writes with such lush and observant precision that you feel you are traveling with her." - The Millions
"At once charming and deeply serious, this eloquent, elegant, beautifully written novel takes on the full range of human experience: love and disappointment, hope and betrayal, race, class, colonialism, moral obligation, the high cost of being an outsider--and the equally high price of belonging." - Francine Prose, author of Mister Monkey
"I know of no other writer who creates the kinds of worlds Andrea Lee imagines—the exquisite prose, the otherworldly landscapes, the fascinating people. Red Island House transported me. It may have looked like I was sitting on my couch reading a book, but I'm telling you I traveled to Madagascar." - Dolen Perkins-Valdez, author of Wench and Balm
"'In Madagascar, everything speaks'...if you can hear it. And hear it all does Andrea Lee's exquisitely sentient protagonist. At first dimly, but then with an ever more discerning ear, Shay attunes herself and the reader to subtlety after subtlety, until the island has yielded extraordinary truths, not only about itself, its people, and its visitors, but about the undertow of plunder. This is a ravishing book of uncommon depth; I loved it." - Gish Jen, author of The Resisters
This information about Red Island House was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Andrea Lee is the author of four books, including the National Book Award–nominated memoir Russian Journal, the novels Lost Hearts in Italy and Sarah Phillips, and the story collection Interesting Women. A former staff writer for the New Yorker, she has written for the New York Times Magazine, Vogue, W, and the New York Times Book Review. Born in Philadelphia, she received her bachelor's and master's degrees from Harvard University and now lives in Italy. The highly anticipated Red Island House will be her first novel to be published in fifteen years.
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