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Published Oct 2009
272 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Paperback Original. In July of 1995, the news photographer Gray Banick disappeared into the Bosnian war zone and doing so took away pieces of the hearts of three people who loved him: Emil Todorovi , his interpreter and friend; Jack MacKenzie, his mentor who taught Gray to hold his camera steady between himself and the worst that war presents; and Lian Zhao who didn t have the strength to love him as he wanted her to.
Now, almost five years later, they have gathered in Sarajevo to find out what happened to Gray, the man who had taught them all what love is. Each driven character in this novel believes fully that there is a love strong enough to sustain them, even in the extreme of circumstances of war. But each time they have uncovered a glimpse of such a thing, they have failed tragically love itself. Or, to see it another way, this is a novel about how love fails us every time or almost every time.
"This could easily have been a clichéd war diary, but Malott avoids the pitfalls of sentimentality, providing a refreshingly clear-eyed evocation of friendship, love and loss." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. This is a passionate, wrenching tale of love and war whose tone and subject matter offer an update to Hemingway." - Library Journal
"Malott strips down the language and amps up the tension as he creates an indelible portrait of the shell shocked and dispossessed." - Booklist
This information about The Evolution of Shadows 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.
Jason Quinn Malott has been the publisher of the online literary journal The Project for a New Mythology. The Evolution of Shadows is his first novel.
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