num_pages: 368
description: Pauline Melville conjures up vivid pictures both of savanna and forest and of city life in South America where love is often trumped by disaster. Unforgettable characters illuminate theme and plot: Sonny, the strange, beautiful and isolate son of Beatrice and Danny, the brother and sister who have a passionate affair at the time of the solar eclipse in 1919; Father Napier, the sandy-haired evangelist whom the Indians perceive as a giant grasshopper; Chofy McKinnon the modern Indian, torn between savanna life and urban future. This is a novel that embraces nearly a century, large in scope but intimate as a whisper, where laughter is never far from the scene of tragedy; a parable of miscegenation and racial elusiveness, of nature defying culture, magic confronting rationalism and of the eternally rebellious nature of love.
language: English
title: The Ventriloquist's Tale
titlecomplete: The Ventriloquist's Tale
genres: 20th Century, Literature, Post Colonial, Literary Fiction, Magical Realism, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Race, Contemporary, Romance
ratings_count: 477
awards: awardedAt: 883641600000
name: Orange Prize
category: Fiction Shortlist, awardedAt: 852105600000
name: Whitbread Award
category: First Novel
publisher: Bloomsbury USA