My Mother's Lovers

By Christopher Hope

Book Overview

"Kick off your shoes, pour yourself a stiff drink and take your hat off to the elder statesman of southern African words--he's done it again." --Alexandra Fuller "Vivid and powerful. Highly recommended." -- Library Journal (starred review) The author of Serenity House and Kruger's Alp (winner of the Whitbread Prize for Fiction) returns with a lyrical and taut novel about the past fifty years of white presence in South Africa, told through a son's larger-than-life vision of his mother. In Kathleen Healey, acclaimed novelist Christopher Hope crafts a superbly authentic female character. Aviator, big game hunter, and a knitting devotee who once boxed three rounds with Ernest Hemingway, her multitude of lovers came from all over the world. When she fades with illness, her son must carry out her final wishes, and confront his own ability to love. Bitingly funny and inventive, My Mother's Lovers is as fierce and radiant as our romance with Africa.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802143733
• ISBN13: 9780802143730
• Release Date: August 2008
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 5.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Bold, dramatic, and colorful, My Mother's Lovers is a high-spirited, adventurous and emotionally mov

Award-winning author Christopher Hope presents My Mother's Lovers, a novel about the connection between mother and son set in twentieth-century sub-Saharan Africa. Told from the son's point of view, My Mother's Lovers chronicles the vivacious life of Kathleen Healy, aviator, big-game hunter, knitter, and connoisseur of all things African. Her loves were many and carefree; when illness brought her to her deathbed, she instructed her son to carry out her final wishes. The tasks he was entrusted with included delivering firearms to a former apartheid enforcer, a wig to a Liberian boy soldier, and knitting needles to the Rain Queen. Yet when he meets Cindy September, he must confront once and for all what it means to love another human being. Bold, dramatic, and colorful, My Mother's Lovers is a high-spirited, adventurous and emotionally moving read.