Genre: Literary
Fiction
Description:
Amazon’s blurb says “Physics wunderkind
Fleur Robins, just a little odd and more familiar with multiple universes than
complicated affairs of the heart, is cast adrift when her project to address
the climate crisis is stalled. Worse, her Ethiopian-born fiancé Assefa takes off
right after her 21st birthday party to track down his father, who’s gone
missing investigating Ethiopian claims to the Ark of the Covenant. … Assefa’s
reconnection with a childhood sweetheart leads Fleur to … a bumbling encounter
with her rival. The experience of tizita
– the interplay of memory, loss, and longing – [flings] Fleur into conflicts
between science and religion, race and privilege, climate danger and denial,
sex and love ... with humor, whimsy, and the clumsiness and grace of innocence.”
Author:
Amazon vouchsafes “Sharon Heath writes
fiction and non-fiction exploring the interplay of science and spirit, politics
and pop culture, contemplation and community. A certified Jungian Analyst … and
faculty member of the C.G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles, she … has [inter
alia] given talks … on topics ranging from the place of soul in social media to
gossip, envy, secrecy, and belonging. She blogs at http://www.sharonheath.com/. Which is all to say that she knows whereof she writes. Her
breadth of knowledge about all manner of things is astonishing. She has the
magpie eye of the true writer.”
Appraisal:
This is an extraordinary book. It is so stuffed with ideas that they
overflow. There is a curiosity about the world in all the vibrant characters who inhabit the book. I learned much (as
you know, I do like to finish a book feeling that I have done so) about
physics, philosophy, religions (various), Ethiopia, Jane Goodall’s Gombe chimp
sanctuary, the odd way humans behave toward each other and (not the least just
because I’ve put it last) climate change. Read it to be amazed and informed as
well as royally entertained. (Some of the word choices are exquisite.) Along
the way Heath discusses racism, rape, female circumcision and abortion in the
present day through her characters’ experience of these. There is plenty of
sex. There is also plenty of mild self-harm (if self-harm can ever be mild).
Do not be put off (but be prepared for) descriptions of everything a character’s eye lights upon
(the descriptions are always vivid). There is also rather too much harking back
to the first book about Fleur Robins (The
History of my Body). There is both not enough to make what happened in the
first book meaningful for someone who has not read it, and too much of it for Tizita to carry without it becoming
burdensome. These interpolations interfered with pace from time to time. This
strategy also threw up that Fleur’s life (physics project apart) seemed to have
been marking time for the five years between The History of my Body and Tizita.
FYI:
A few f-bombs, plenty of sex, description of rape, female
circumcision, and self-harm; discussion of abortion and racism.
Format/Typo
Issues:
Very few.
Rating: ****
Four Stars
Reviewed
by: Judi Moore
Approximate
word count: 115-120,000 words
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