The protagonist is Marc who travels to a war-torn island in an attempt to re-discover himself as well as embrace the memory of his late family, descendents of the island . Torn between his father and grandfather’s philosophies on war, love and life, we see Marc try and forge his own attitudes against the harsh backdrop of the novel.

He is both helped and hindered by the views of his lover Uva, an eco-warrior with idealistic dreams.

However their worlds are shattered when Uva is forced to run from the Military and so begins the protagonist’s real journey, not only across the varied landscape of the island in search of his lost love but also across the challenging moral dilemmas of his mind.

Gunesekera’s use of language is undeniably beautiful. The world he creates flows poetically off the page. He exposes the flawed and fragile existence of both the protagonist and the inhabitants of an unnamed, remote island - presumably based upon the author’s original home of Sri Lanka. Yet despite the surface beauty of the prose, the text lacks the depth of conviction to grasp the reader.

The relationship between Marc and Uva, which drives the story, is not convincingly portrayed. Perhaps this is due to the characters themselves. Despite the first-person narration, we never truly identify with the protagonist or his struggle. Indeed this could be said of Uva too. Beautiful, exotic and passionate in a distant world, she is both alien and unattainable, emotionally unavailable to the reader. Her past unspoken, almost inconsequential, until the end of the novel. Indeed even Marc’s past is tainted. His flashbacks to a “normal” existence are tarred by their sentimentality especially regarding his grandfather who appears Yoda-like.

Nevertheless this is a thought-provoking read and the end does not shy away from confronting the themes of the novel that plague the protagonist. It does not provide any easy answers either, if any at all. I do recommend Heaven’s Edge, if only to indulge in its beautiful prose. The issues raised may outwardly seem as distant as the island itself yet actually strike all too closely to home and our own troubled world. It is not surprising then that you may finish reading the novel with a quiet discomfort as we are asked to question our own philosophies.

Quote: She laughed then, bursting a warm pod within her; a sound I had not heard for longer than I could remember, a sound from the edge of heaven.

Becky
July 05

RELEASE NOTES:

Left on park bench in Victoria Gardens