Keeping together with out travel theme, FACES reviews travel or traveller related fiction like The Beach, Shantaram and Just One Day. Read on…
The Beach
Author: Alex Garland
The Beach tells the story of Richard, a young traveller inspired by images of the Vietnam War movies that he grew up watching. It is on his travel through South-East Asia, in search of adventure, that he lands in Thailand, where he comes in contact with Daffy Duck, who tells him about the pristine beach and leaves a map to the place, before committing suicide. He befriends a French couple and together they locate the place and begin their adventure with utopia.
Shantaram
Author: Gregory David Roberts
Set in the underworld of contemporary Mumbai (formerly Bombay), Shantaram is a narrative by Lin, an escaped convict with a false passport, who flees maximum security prison in Australia to land in Mumbai. The book traces Lin’s search for love and meaning of life, while running a clinic in one of the city’s poorest slums. Based on the true events in the life of the author, it is a touching story of hope and faith in mankind.
Just One Day
Author: Gayle Forman
Allyson ‘LuLu’ Healey, described as a typical American good girl, meets laid-back Dutch actor Willem De Ruiter, at an underground performance of Twelfth Night in England. There’s an undeniable spark between them and, after just one day together, that spark bursts into a flame. She wakes up after a whirlwind day in Paris to discover that Willem has left. Over the next year, Allyson embarks on a journey to come to terms with the narrow confines of her life…