The Book of Color

by Julia Blackburn

Book Overview

In the late 19th century, an English missionary arrives on a remote island in the Indian Ocean, intent on wiping out fornication among the natives. Instead he incurs a curse that strikes first his dark-skinned wife, then his son and grandson. But is the curse supernatural--or a white man's guilty fascination with an alien new world?

"A hypnotic, cryptic, haunting exploration of the power of memory."
--The Boston Globe

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679758372
• ISBN13: 9780679758372
• Release Date: August 1996
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 2.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

A poetic and profound meditation on history and race

Julia Blackburn is wonderful. Old Man Goya was one of the best books about an artist I've ever read. The Book of Color is in the lineage of Genesis, of Shakespeare, and of Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea. Although it is heavily reminiscent of the latter, it does not seem derivative; Blackburn has her own, strong voice. The motifs of the book, its scenes and metaphors, encapsulate the process of its writing. The author is haunted, and tries to follow her ghosts to their origins; you could call this a ghost story. Its understanding of the pathologies of racism and misogyny is deep, yet no character is a one-sided villain. I've read this book twice, and found it hypnotically beautiful both times.

Hypnotic

This strange & hypnotic novel is told in a dreamlike state and lures the reader into a seamless stream of vivid images. Haunting.