BookBrowse Reviews The Darling by Russell Banks

BookBrowse:

One of Banks's most powerful novels yet.

From the book jacket: Set in Liberia and the United States from 1975 through 1991, The Darling is a political-historical thriller -- reminiscent of Greene and Conrad -- that explodes the genre, raising serious philosophical questions about terrorism, political violence, and the clash of races and cultures.

Comment: According to some reviewers, The Darling isn't a patch on Russell Bank's 1996 novel, Cloudsplitter (a finalist for the 1998 Pulitzer).  If that's the case, I just hope I can clear some space in my reading schedule at some point to read Cloudsplitter, because I found The Darling to be a rich, complex and altogether compelling read, so would be delighted to read something even better!  

If you appreciate books that tell a good story at the same time as they inform, then I strongly recommend The Darling.  I wish I could give this a more eloquent write-up, as it certainly deserves better, but the story has so many depths and nuances, that I'm finding it impossible to sum up adequately.  Fortunately for you, you can read the opinions of far less tongue-tied reviewers than myself at BookBrowse!

This review first ran in the October 19, 2005 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.

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