Gilgamesh: A Novel

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Gilgamesh is a rich, spare, and evocative novel of encounters and escapes, of friendship and love, of loss and acceptance, a debut that marks the emergence of a world-class talent. It is 1937. The modern world, they say, is waiting to erupt. On a tiny farm in far southwestern Australia, seventeen-year-old Edith lives with her mother and sister, Frances. One afternoon two men, her English cousin Leopold and his Armenian friend Aram, arrive taking the long way home from an archaeological dig in Iraq. Edith is captivated by the tales they tell of strange peoples, magical journeys, and a world far beyond the narrow horizon of her small town of Nunderup. One such story is the epic of "Gilgamesh," the ancient Mesopotamian king who adventured throughout the world with his friend the wild man Enkidu, in search of the secret of eternal life. Two years later, in 1939, Edith and her young son, Jim, set off on a journey of their own, to Soviet Armenia, where they are trapped by the outbreak of war. A novel of stunning accomplishment, Gilgamesh examines what happens when we strike out into the world, and how, like the wandering king, we find our way home.

FROM THE CRITICS

The New York Times

To get a sense of what Gilgamesh is like, imagine one of those Outback bodice-rippers put on a strict diet, pared down to essentials, purged of the excess water weight of set pieces involving eroticized sheep-shearing and adorable kangaroos, and transformed into something streamlined, strong and remarkably lovely. — Francine Prose

The Washington Post

Joan London's glancing, iridescent, intelligent first novel doesn't do anything so crass as suggest a moral. But if it did, it might come close to the truth old Frank glimpsed hazily on his deathbed: Whatever "the point of it" is, it still has to be worked out anew in each generation. Gilgamesh and his story are there to remind us that this is as close to immortality as we may ever get. — Elizabeth Ward

Publishers Weekly

This novel by Australian London was a finalist for several major prizes in her native land, and it's easy to see why. Its story-of a 17-year-old girl living in a remote corner of the country who bears a child by a briefly visiting Armenian and then follows him to his native land, in the Soviet Union on the brink of WWII-is riveting in its strangeness and immediacy, evoking with stark power a world almost inconceivably isolated and remote. Right from the start, when Frank, a veteran of WWI, brings his nurse and inamorata Ada with him to live on his farm in southwestern Australia, we are in a vividly realized and elemental landscape. And when their daughter Edith is seduced by the strange Aram (the driver for her mother's British friend), gives birth to baby Jim and a few months later sets off to seek the boy's elusive father in his remote country, one has entered the realm of the legendary and epic journey conjured by the book's title. The chapters covering Edith's sojourn in Soviet Armenia, threatened by both Germans and Russians, are unforgettable, brought to life in myriad brilliant details. Only when Edith returns to Australia after the war and gradually picks up the threads of her old life does the story begin to lose its grip. London's stark prose and command of a wonderfully maintained brooding atmosphere, however, make this an adventure to remember. (Apr.) Forecast: London is the author of two story collections, but this novel marks her U.S. debut. It can be confidently handsold to admirers of Tim Winton and Kate Grenville. Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.

KLIATT - Nola Theiss

This is a tale of isolated people who meet, are separated, and struggle to meet again. Set in 1937, two young girls are raised by their widowed mother in rural Australia. When their distant cousin from England and his friend from Armenia arrive unexpectedly, their lives are upset by tales of distant lands. The young men leave and one of the girls finds herself pregnant and feels compelled to find her lover in Armenia. As impossible as this seems, Edith must try; and in the attempt, her life and the life of her son change forever. While some of the plot is dependent on unlikely events, it is an interesting and unusual story. KLIATT Codes: SA—Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2001, Grove, 256p., Ages 15 to adult.

Library Journal