Synopses & Reviews
A young man of great promise when he emigrated from Ghana by way of Oxford University to the New World in 1955, Samuel Tyne was determined to accomplish significant things. Fifteen years later, now a failed and insignificant government employee, Samuel inherits his uncle's crumbling mansion in Aster, a small town in Canada. Despite his wife's resistance and the sullen complaints of his thirteen-year-old twin daughters, Samuel quits his job and moves his family to the town. For here, he believes, is that fabled second chance, and he is determined to not let it slip away.
At first, Aster seems perfect. To Samuel, the formerly all-black town represents the return to a communal, idyllic way of life. But he soon discovers the town's problems: a history of in-fighting, a strict town council, and a series of mysterious fires that put all the townsfolk on edge. When his daughters cease to speak and refuse to explain their increasingly threatening behavior, Samuel turns more and more to the refuge of his electronics shop, where he hopes to build one of the country's first advanced computing machines. As his ambitions intensify, the life he has struggled so hard to improve begins to disintegrate around him, and a dark current of menace in the town is turned upon the Tyne family. Written by Edugyan when she was twenty-five, The Second Life of Samuel Tyne is the highly original debut of a gifted writer.
Review
"Although Edugyan's spare prose, visceral images, and unfussy dialogue create a suitably ominous atmosphere, the plot advances haltingly and predictably....A talented author to watch as her narrative technique matures." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"It's hard to believe it's a first novel....Edugyan's confident timbre never wavers, even as the novel loses its sense of direction....Even with the plot's missteps, this is a very well written and highly competent book." Los Angeles Times
Review
"Edugyan's beautifully rendered first novel offers a haunting look at personal longing and family obligations." Booklist
Review
"[H]auntingly elegant....Edugyan...effectively blends sharp existential observations with spare, graceful prose to provide a wrenching portrait of one man's lifelong struggle with alienation." Library Journal
Synopsis
The first novel from the acclaimed author of Washington Black--an exploration of explores the sweep of history, the binds of blood, the challenges of middle age, and the pain of exile, witnessed through the experiences of one family whose hope blinds them to threatening forces that could tear them apart.
It is 1968 and Samuel Tyne has lived in exile in the chaotic New World for more than a dozen years. Born in Ghana, educated at Oxford, Samuel was expected to accomplish great things. But the middling government employee fears he has fallen short of that promise. When he inherits a crumbling mansion in the small, provincial town of Aster, Canada, he packs up his protesting family, believing that he has been offered a fabled second chance--and this time, he will not fail.
An all-white enclave that was originally settled by freed slaves and runaways from America, the idyllic Aster feels like a miracle. But as time passes, Samuel begins to see the town is not the haven he hoped: riven by political infighting, a community resistant to change, and most disturbing, a number of mysterious fires that have put the townsfolk on edge. His family, too, begins to splinter. Stubbornly clinging to his ambitious dreams, Samuel finds the successful life he's struggled to build is disintegrating around him, and a dark current of menace in the town is turned upon his family--that they may be too powerless to fight.
Synopsis
Haunting and atmospheric, this debut novel portrays the heartbreak, hardship and moments of surprising grace in the life of a man struggling to realize his destiny.
About the Author
A graduate of Johns Hopkins University and the University of Victoria, Esi Edugyan was raised in Calgary. She recently completed a fiction fellowhsip at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA. Previous work has appeared in Best New American Voices 2003, edited by Joyce Carol Oates. She lives in Victoria, Canada.