The Sandglass

September 28, 1998
Mysterious disappearances--of individuals, families, nations and ways of life--haunt this poignant tale of two feuding Sri Lankan families and their intertwined destinies, at home and in England, since the 1950s. Piecing together diaries and anecdotes, narrator Chip, a Sri Lankan expatriate in London, ruminates on the sorrowful story of his friends Pearl and Jason Ducal and their adult son, Prins, whose lives have been marred at every turn by the malign influences of their Colombo neighbors, the Vatunases, a dynasty of corporate robber-barons. Jason's 1956 death in an ostensible freak accident facilitates a business coup that cements the Vatunases' ascendancy. Now family matriarch Pearl has died, an event that opens the novel in present-day London. Deeply affected by this new tragedy, Chip reflects sadly on mortality, identity, exile and the passage of time. Although Booker finalist Gunesekera's (The Reef; Monkfish Moon) prose becomes a bit turgid in some of this reflection, he thoroughly involves the reader in the Ducals' plight and skillfully evokes their disparate worlds. (Oct.) FYI: Paperback rights to Riverhead.

September 1, 1998
Expatriate Sri Lankan matriarch Pearl Ducal dies in London just days before her first great-grandchild is born in the same hospital. Her wandering son and only surviving child, Prins, descends upon his old home in Sri Lanka, agitated by the mystery of his dissolving family. The result is a tale replete with silences, deaths, and the imposing presence of the entrepreneurial, predatory Vatunas clan, whose grand homestead nearly encircled the eccentric dream home of Prins's late father, Jason. Narrator Chip, Prins's contemporary and a longtime confidante of Pearl's, is swept into the Ducal enigmas by virtue of association. Weaving memories of conversations with Pearl through two days of talks with Prins, Chip emerges with the melancholy story of tragic Jason, long-suffering Pearl, and their unraveling family. A tender, accomplished novel by Booker Prize finalist Gunesekera (Reef, LJ 2/1/95); highly recommended.--Janet Ingraham Dwyer, Columbus, OH

September 15, 1998
Gunesekera's novel of subtle tragedy and desperate intrigue, set against a backdrop of political upheaval, chronicles the interaction of two feuding families in post-colonial Sri Lanka. After the death of his mother, Pearl, Jason Ducal is driven to reexamine his family's history. In so doing, he comes to look more closely at the questionable circumstances surrounding his father's death and the part his potential wife's family may have played in it. Pearl and her tragic marriage are brilliantly depicted through anecdotes told to a family friend, and each member of Pearl's family eventually reflects the search for peace that she failed to complete. Jason struggles to understand his parents' relationship as a means of transcending the legacy of unhappiness that he seems to have inherited. Part murder mystery, part historical fiction, this touching drama reveals the tangle of human emotions and social obligations that bind people together as families and questions the nature of love--romantic love, filial love, the love of a friend. ((Reviewed September 15, 1998))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1998, American Library Association.)