In the ancient myth, Orpheus travels to the underworld to rescue his lover Eurydice from death. In this compelling re-imagining of the Orpheus story, Leela travels into an underworld of kidnapping, torture and despair in search of her lover. A mathematical genius, Leela has escaped her hardscrabble southern hometown to study in Boston. There she encounters Mishka, a young Australian musician who soon becomes her lover. Then one day Leela is picked up off the street and taken to an interrogation centre. There has been an 'incident', an explosion on the underground; terrorists are suspected. Her interrogators reveal that Mishka may not be all he seems. But as she struggles to digest all this, Mishka disappears ...
This book is the first of Janette Turner Hospital's that our group has read and generally the feed back was positive for her writing style and talent. We all found the story intriguing with a well drawn plot and praised the inclusion of current social and political issues. It was agreed that only a talented writer could pull this one off!
But on the other hand, a few of us had trouble relating to the characters, and in fact did not at anytime find ourselves able to empathise or particularly care much for any of them. This is an issue if you are a lover of character driven novels ... although in saying that, the book's characters are not necessarily meant to be sympathetically attractive. They are an obsessive, intellectual lot (with plenty of emotional baggage) stretched over three wars and three continents, so in actual fact, it would be asking much to connect with any or all of them!
Our scores rated high for this book though; from 5 up to 9, so it would be considered a worthwhile read in our view ... and if you do pick it up, take it to the end ... it may be a little whimsical, but with an interesting twist.
