Blood Kin
Ceridwen Dovey
Blood Kin
A chef, a portraitist and a barber are taken hostage in a coup to overthrow their boss, the President. They are held captive in a palatial retreat in the mountains high above the capital city. Far below them, chaos tears through the streets. The chef's daughter, the portraitist's wife and the barber's lover watch their men from the shadows. In such precarious times, intimate relationships are as dangerous as political ones. As the old order falls, so does the veil that hides the truth about these men and women's secret passions. Drawing her readers masterfully towards the novel's devastating climax, Ceridwen Dovey reveals how humanity's most atavistic impulses - vanity, vengeance and greed - seethe, relentlessly, just beneath the veneer of civility.
4.1 out of 5 based on 6 reviews
|
Omniscore:
|
| Classification |
Fiction |
| Genre |
General Fiction |
| Format |
Paperback |
| Pages |
184 |
| RRP |
£7.99 |
| Date of Publication |
May 2008 |
| ISBN |
978-1843546580 |
| Publisher |
Atlantic |
| |
A chef, a portraitist and a barber are taken hostage in a coup to overthrow their boss, the President. They are held captive in a palatial retreat in the mountains high above the capital city. Far below them, chaos tears through the streets. The chef's daughter, the portraitist's wife and the barber's lover watch their men from the shadows. In such precarious times, intimate relationships are as dangerous as political ones. As the old order falls, so does the veil that hides the truth about these men and women's secret passions. Drawing her readers masterfully towards the novel's devastating climax, Ceridwen Dovey reveals how humanity's most atavistic impulses - vanity, vengeance and greed - seethe, relentlessly, just beneath the veneer of civility.
First published in July 2007.
Reviews
The Guardian
Catherine Taylor
“[A] mesmerising novel... Although it's tightly controlled, there is a hypnotic, languorous feel to the writing - even as the conclusion circles with the impatience of vultures over carrion.”
21/07/2007
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The Independent
Emma Hagestadt
“Political parables can be hard going, but South African-born Dovey keeps the reader on board... Sex and sadism prove close allies in this mature and impressive debut. ”
18/07/2008
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The Independent on Sunday
James Urquhart
“Blood Kin doesn't aspire to the intense psychological anxieties mustered by similar explorations of collusion and oppression, such as Thomas Kenneally's Saddam cipher, The Tyrant's Novel. The trauma of physical violence is kept off stage whilst Dovey strategically deploys snapshots of family heritage. The effect is tense and dramatic, as though the claustrophobic pressures of a country house murder mystery, in which all are implicated by motive or connection, had been transplanted on to the political instability of Garcia Màrquez's revolutionary landscapes. Dovey draws strong, vivid characters and her keen eye for signposting detail ("a faint pattern of salt on his cheeks" revealing night tears) gives a sensual counterpoint to the ruthless logic of her subtly heralded dénouement.”
30/09/2007
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The Los Angeles Times
Tim Rutten
“If there is a flaw in this fine first novel, it probably comes from the same thing that makes it doubly impressive: Dovey's youth. While her characters think individually, they speak in one, elegantly controlled authorial voice. Six distinctive voices is a lot to ask of a writer under 30, and the book's lack of them makes "Blood Kin" a slightly richer intellectual experience than it is an emotional one. It is, however, formidable on its own terms... One of the things that makes Dovey's impressive novel so ruthlessly unsentimental is her implicit insistence that conscience is the illumination that every tyrant must fear -- and her explicit demonstration of just how casually that light is everywhere extinguished.”
27/02/2008
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The New York Times
Dave Itzkoff
“[A] precise and terrifying debut novel.... [Dovey executes] pitch-perfect renderings of her three narrators’ daily lives and routines, each one a microscopic marvel of sublimated aggression...The final movement of “Blood Kin” is a muted success: a few last-minute plot twists feel melodramatic and better suited to soap opera, but the novel’s closing pages, in which the fates of the Commander and his three servants at last converge, fold together as elegantly as origami. ”
06/04/2008
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Time Out
Matthew Schneier (New York)
“Dovey’s handling of this theme is deft enough, but Blood Kin is stiffened by a lack of nuance and stilted in even its most dramatic revelations. Playing at parable is a dangerous exercise, tempting even seasoned writers to grandiosity, and Dovey fails to pull it off. Brief though it is, Blood Kin feels long, a treatise on power’s charms without power’s charisma.”
05/03/2008
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