Empire Settings

By David Schmahmann

Book Overview

Danny Divan is a white teenager in South Africa under apartheid when he falls in love with the daughter of a black domestic servant. His family forces the two apart, and eventually his discomfort with the poisonous political atmosphere drives him from the country and to a new life in America.

Within weeks of his arrival in Boston, Danny meets Tesseba, an offbeat but trusting artist who takes him in and marries him so he won't be deported. Even as they live as a couple and build a life together, and as Danny prospers and his family joins him in exile, the memory of his forbidden first love does not fade. Twenty years later, when Danny returns to the "new" South Africa to salvage what he can of his family's fortune, he sets out to discover what became of the girl he cannot forget. What he finds instead is the truest version of himself.

This novel traces the ambiguities of love within a family and for another, and tests the shakiness of memory. Empire Settings reveals how love, and the memory of love, can be overwhelmed by changing assumptions about race and belonging.

David Schmahmann was born in Durban, South Africa, and is a graduate of Dartmouth College and the Cornell Law School. He has also studied in India and Israel, and his publications include a short story in The Yale Review and articles on legal issues. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts and practices law in Boston. This is his first novel.

The book has been optioned for a film by noted producer Danny Wilson.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1893996166
• ISBN13: 9781893996168
• Release Date: October 2001
• Publisher: White Pine Press (NY)
• Length: 328 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.8" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

complex and moving

This is a wonderfully moving, bittersweet story, told with an authentic and honest voice. All the characters became absolutely real in the telling of the story. The author captures the complexity of emotions felt by South African emigres as well as anyone I've read. (He also captures the feel of Durban so exactly that I got a slight shock when I looked up from the book and saw my own back yard.) The main character's coming to terms with himself and his past brought tears to my eyes. I can't wait for Schmahmann's next book!

For crying out loud, the author's from South Africa!

I know the author from having opposed him in court (I'm a lawyer, too). I'm also a writer who doesn't like to see authors trashed by people who make false assumptions, as one reviewer made. s anyone who has evr held a conversation with him would know, David is from South Africa, and his voice is authentic.

a smenial..heart palpatating book

Empire Setting is one those very rare books that makes you feel "warm inside". It is simply magical!It capture the emotions of humanity in a South African Setting.It is written by an author who is gifted with an extremely fluid and natural style.I feel lucky to have stumbled on this book. It definitely rates in the "cannot put it down" category and It goes right to the TOP of my list for gift giving this holiday season

Beautifully written, deeply moving

I bought this book on a whim, mainly because I have an abiding interest in South Africa. What I found was an exquisitiely written, deeply felt, and historically accurate account of a forbidden relationship in apartheid-era South Africa -- and of adult reconciliation with lost love. I would recommend this novel highly to any aficionado of things South African -- or of beautiful novels. I look forward to his sequel.

Empire Settings

Empire Settings is a moving and poignant account of forbidden love in a copuntry torn apart by aparthied in the 1970s. It is also a story of a jewish family and the main charachter, Danny Divin's, struggle to find peace with him self and his history. I love that this author was able to write so sensitively and brilliantly about women, in particular women of color in South Africa. The characters in the novel each tell thier story from their own point of view about their experiences of living under apartheid and their own powerlessness to change the political situation. The book is so beautifully written that I instantly became involved with the characters to a point that I did not want the book to end. I look forward to reading more work by this first time author.