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the fiction of K.C. Frederick. Things you can get here are:
A new novel by K.C. Frederick
...Half a world away from their afflicted homeland, a man and a woman
try to make a life for themselves. The appearance of a stranger
from the lost country brings excitement but complications as well,
since the man is shadowed by a troubled past. All three discover
that, even in exile, they're not exempt from the conflicts of the place
they left behind. All the while, they have to create their own futures
out of whatever resources they possess...
Status update 8/19/2000: The books are
back from the printer, so you can buy them now! Talk to your local
bookshop about ordering (or check the web).
Status update 7/1/2000: The early reviews
are in! Here's what they're saying about The
Fourteenth Day:
Kirkus Reviews, June 20, 2000
A second bleak and shadowy saga from Frederick(Country of
Memory, 1998) centers on a trio of exiles from a land torn by civil war--a
bloodbath known as the Thirteen Days--as they struggle to find their bearings
far from home. Adapting to their new environment isn't terribly hard for
Vaniok and Ila, fellow travelers from the homeland who've arrived separately
in the large university town where they live, work--and remember.
Having conquered the difficulties of language, the spirited Vaniok finds
acceptance among his maintenance coworkers by imitating their basketball
fervor, while the more pragmatic Ila takes her own route to self-sufficiency
by buying a car. For the newer arrival Jory, however, who enters
their lives with a jar of soil from the homeland and secrets from his past,
the gentle spring and peaceful streets are bitter, intolerable reminders
of what he's left behind. His brooding brings it all back for his
countrymen: Ila's near-escape from bayonet-wielding soldiers while hiding
under straw; Vaniok's long night waiting in ambush for a police car by
the side of a bridge, and, before that, the act of cowardice that saved
his life. In the months that follow, Vaniok watches with dismay as
Jory, now a coworker, draws Ila to him, while his own aloofness on the
job earns him the enmity of his crew boss. But Jory's despair at
being in exile comes before all, and not even Ila's charms can make him
loosen his grip on his memories. The other two make plans to settle
in their adopted homeland, but Jory, alarmed by the prospect that his boss
is spying on him, erupts in anger and decides to flee. Focused sharply
on those for whom personal and national identity have become traumatically
entwined--and focused especially on their turbulent inner lives--Frederick's
tale is as inexorable and engrossing as a recurring nightmare.
Publisher's Weekly, June 5, 2000
Meditating on love, death and national loyalty, Frederick(Country
of Memory) pieces together a delicate, thoughtful allegory of war and displacement.
Vaniok, an Eastern European exile in his late 20's., leaves his country(unnamed
but roughly modeled on Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia)after a 13-day revolution
that starts out charged with romantic idealism but ends in a blood bath.
In exile along with his cousin Ila, Vaniok tries to establish a new life,
but the appearance of fellow countryman Jory casts a shadow over his plans
for his future. Jory is less willing to break with the old country,
and his reveries irritate Vaniok, who wants to forget what he cannot change.
He becomes more troubled when Ila falls under Jory's spell and stirs up
memories Vaniok feels should be left in peace. Ila's seduction by
Jory suggests her larger seduction by the past, its troubling unresolved
mysteries, guilts and betrayals. Although technically living in a freer
country, Ila enters psychologically into a fugitive state, longing for
a desert where the air is so dry that fingers don't leave prints, and flowers
bloom after a rare rainfall. A great place for criminals, says Jory,
And he knows it is he, and not Ila, who really needs such a place.
Eventually the characters go their separate ways, and Vaniok is able to
turn a page in his life, confident not so much of a "new beginning"
as of a future in a spot reminiscent of the beloved Deep Lakes region of
his childhood, where he will no longer deny the past. Painted in shades
of black and blue, this landscape of exile is by turns a thriller, psychological
novel, meditation and romance, difficult to penetrate but well worth the
effort.
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