Rowing Lesson, The

Plot

Product Description Winner of the South African M-Net Literary Prize (English category). “Rarely in South African writing will we encounter language of such fire and passion.”—J.M. Coetzee “The beauty of The Rowing Lesson is in its fluid metaphors, its urgent storytelling . . . and the lyric desperation of a daughter’s love.”—O Magazine “Beautiful. . . . Unfailingly original.”—Jennifer Egan “Visceral. . . . Intensely exhilarating.”—The New York Times Book Review “Like Joyce or William Gass or John Edgar Wideman, Anne Landsman fashions a sensual web of memory and desire, rescuing a world on the brink of extinction through the power of her lyricism.”—Stewart O’Nan “Amazing.”—Los Angeles Times “A tour de force.”—Roxana Robinson “An adventure in language. . . . It makes art of life.”—Louis Menand Betsy Klein is summoned from her home in the United States to the bedside of her dying father in a South African hospital. Faced with having to say goodbye, she delves into his mind, speaking to him in the lyrical second-person. She imaginatively recreates his life—his struggles to become a doctor after being orphaned young and his fight to win the respect of his Boer patients as a Jew—as well as her own experiences with him as a father. Anne Landsman was born and raised in South Africa and received degrees from the University of Cape Town and Columbia University. Her debut novel, The Devil’s Chimney, also set in South Africa, was a Book of the Month Club Quality Paperback Selection and was nominated for a PEN/Hemingway Award. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and two children. Review Winner of the South African M-Net Literary PrizeWinner of the Sunday Times Fiction PrizeShortlisted for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish LiteratureShortlisted for the Harold U. Ribalow PrizeTop 29 Financial Times Fiction Books of the Year Selection Top 10 Times South African Books of the Year Selection “Visceral. . . . Intensely exhilarating.”—The New York Times Book Review  “Amazing.”—Los Angeles Times “The beauty of The Rowing Lesson is in its fluid metaphors, its urgent storytelling . . . and the lyric desperation of a daughter’s love.”—O Magazine “Rarely in South African writing will we encounter language of such fire and passion.”—J.M. Coetzee “Beautiful. . . . Unfailingly original.”—Jennifer Egan “Like Joyce or William Gass or John Edgar Wideman, Anne Landsman fashions a sensual web of memory and desire, rescuing a world on the brink of extinction through the power of her lyricism.”—Stewart O’Nan  “A tour de force.”—Roxana Robinson “An adventure in language. . . . It makes art of life.”—Louis MenandFrom the Hardcover edition. From Publishers Weekly Scenes from the rich, contentious life of a dying Jewish South African country doctor flash before his expatriate daughters eyes in Landsmans frustrating second novel (after The Devils Chimney). A skinny boy with a hot-tempered mother and a good-hearted father, Harry Klein grew up in pre-WWII South Africa, where he married a woman from a socially superior Jewish family during medical school and later endured the wartime death of his father from influenza. After his emigration to South Africa, patients of all races revere him as "Doctor God," but he clashes with his artist daughter (who narrates, maddeningly, in the second person) and cant shake his life-long jealousy of his younger brother, a flashy, respected cardiologist. This novel offers a few insights on death, the frailty of the human body and the ties between parent and child, but the overly lyrical prose tries too hard, and the second-person narration does the mostly opaque narrative few favors.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. About the Author Anne Landsman is the author of the novels The Rowing Lesson and The Devil’s Chimney. The Rowing Lesson was awarded South Africa’s two top literary awards—the 2009 Sunday Times Fiction Prize and South Africa’s