Patrick Flanery's novel about contemporary South Africa and how Apartheid continues to cast a shadow over the country and its inhabitants. This post-modern novel has echoes of Philip Roth and the way Flanery interweaves several narratives together is ambitious but he carries it off. As aging novelist Clare Wald opens up her life to biographer Sam Leroux but she is haunted by her perceived crimes against her country and her own family. In the meantime, Sam is hiding his own agenda. This is a story of regret, guilt and repression. Flanery's descriptions capture the feeling of paranoia and claustraphobia in South Africa, as well as the constant threat of crime. 'Absolution' considers issues of identity, belonging as well as the potent issue of race. A good read.

Absolution by Patrick Flanery is a complex novel which tackles a very difficult subject of censorship in South Africa and the issue of Apartheid. The book itself is challenging on many levels. First of all, it’s not an easy read, but I found myself engrossed in the story, or rather stories, which are linked in an extraordinary way. The characters are vivid and pull the attention towards their part of the story. Clare Wald, who is one of the central characters, is a strong and opinionated person. She knows what she wants and how she’s going to live her life – sometimes her own life seems like one of her characters. The main plot of the story centres on the issue of Clare’s biography which is being written by Sam Leroux. He himself has a certain agenda in writing the book about her – to get as close to her as he can. All the other characters in the book lead towards many different directions to link Clare and Sam. It’s kind of a game which might bring absolution at the end. That is the next challenge that you face reading the book. Everyone’s stories are told from various perspectives – government records, memories, books, personal observations and endless conversations. This makes the reader face the real dilemma – which stories are true? With so many angles it’s hard to decide who to believe or if something really happened. Everyone has secrets and everyone is a prisoner in one way or another. Constant fear and helplessness driven by corruption and violence forces the question how people can live like that and what they have to sacrifice to survive. What I really love about this book is that both Clare and Sam chose literature as the pain relief and antidote for all that happened to them. The characters are sometimes shadowed by ghosts of those who had a specific role in the lives of those who struggle to come to terms with their loss and how to fill the empty void left behind them. Writing or reading the books, which not always tell the entire truth, have shaped Clare’s and Sam’s past, present and future so they could deal with the loss of people who were victims of the Apartheid. Some of them decided to take a questionable action, like Clare’s daughter Laura, whereas others were mere collateral damage, amongst them Sam’s parents and Clare’s sister. Flanery’s style is good, with only a few descriptive fragments which are repetitive and seem a bit out of place. However, it’s a book worth reading – even if it’s a bit difficult to get into right away. If you like Clare Wald’s character, then I can recommend Elizabeth Costello by J M Coetzee.

Claire, who seems to think herself a failing parent is craving to undertsand her daughter but is no longer able to ask her. She seems to be going through a cathartic proccess and in the last decades of her life, employs Sam to write her autbiography with her real aim being to do just one thing that can might compensate for her inadequacy as a successful parent for duaghter Laura. The text is set in Post Apartheid South Africa and although it takes a couple of chapters to actually get in to it, it's really worth continuing. The author has very cleverly interwined her characters past and present and the first time you get more than one view of a certain murderous event, it's really got you hooked (that and when you realise that Claire and Sam are connected by one interesting and mysterious character - Claire's beloved daughter). The structure of the novel goes back and forth, from one perspective to another, and from present to the past. the numerous perspectives adds numerous layers to the story line and the reader is left to figure out the narrative most reliable. I put the book down with questions i felt were left unanswered but that only added to the reality of the novel. undoubtedly it was very narrative at times, but Flanery pulls you back in before descriptive narrative is leading you to put it down. The novel it reminds me of most is Shrivers' 'We need to talk about kevin' but personally, this novel is far better. The plot unravels consistently, yet remaining intriguing and the narrative is not totally drowned in descriptions.

While I found this book difficult to get into at first, the interplay between the characters soon drew me in. The story, told across a mixture of past and present day, slowly reveals the relationships between the characters as well as how simple decisions can have a great impact. An interesting first novel, as well as an insight into post-apartheid South Africa.

Absolution is not an easy read but it is well worth persevering with. The present of the story is in post-Apartheid South Africa and focuses on Clare Wald, an ageing writer and Sam Leroux her biographer. The relationship between Clare and Sam is complicated. Although Clare initially says that she hasn’t met Sam before it becomes apparent that their histories are linked. Clare’s sister was murdered, her daughter disappeared, it is the exploration of these events that shapes the main storyline and forms the link between Clare and Sam. Both characters are looking for reconciliation and forgiveness for past incidents. Absolution explores the meaning of truth. The author uses narratives from Clare and Sam as well as excerpts from Clare’s memoirs to show that truth is sometimes a matter of viewpoint and very complicated to pin down. Different recollections of the same event vary. It is sometimes difficult to follow the story through the shifting perspectives of several narratives and also through a shift in time as one of the narratives is that of Sam as a child. However it is the use of several viewpoints that makes the story interesting. What is real and what is not? Who do you believe? Whose narrative should you trust? Readers are left to draw their own conclusions in the end. Not all of the questions raised by the narrative are answered. This is a book that needs to be read more than once through to fully appreciate its many merits.