Silent Night
A Novel
Published on 5. September 2024
Book
Paperback/Softback
340 pages
978-1-68219-443-0 (ISBN)
Description
At the start of Mark Jacob's remarkable new novel-his first book in thirteen years-thirty-seven-year-old Smith wins a "stash" of diamonds in a poker game. The only catch: he has to find them.
A Louisiana native, Smith is currently employed on an oil platform off the west coast of Africa, while the diamonds are somewhere in the immense, war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo. But Smith's grown tired of the platform and he hates the idea of wasting a full house. One last adventure, he tells himself, and then, diamonds or no diamonds, he's heading home to Louisiana.
In Kinshasa, Smith meets a young woman named Beatrice, who hails from a village on the other side of the country. But this village, she tells Smith, is where his diamonds are-a thousand miles away as the crow flies, but significantly longer on the patchwork of guerilla-patrolled roads that traverse the country. If he helps her get home, she'll show him where the stones are.
What ensues is a guided tour of hell in which a not-so-innocent American abroad comes face to face with the legacy of European imperialism in the heart of the African continent. Like Joseph Conrad, Graham Greene, and V.S. Naipaul before him, Jacobs reveals the limits of the western gaze, inverting the tropes of the white-savior novel to give us a story about a man who realizes you don't have to travel to another country to get lost, and you don't have to go home to be found.
A Louisiana native, Smith is currently employed on an oil platform off the west coast of Africa, while the diamonds are somewhere in the immense, war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo. But Smith's grown tired of the platform and he hates the idea of wasting a full house. One last adventure, he tells himself, and then, diamonds or no diamonds, he's heading home to Louisiana.
In Kinshasa, Smith meets a young woman named Beatrice, who hails from a village on the other side of the country. But this village, she tells Smith, is where his diamonds are-a thousand miles away as the crow flies, but significantly longer on the patchwork of guerilla-patrolled roads that traverse the country. If he helps her get home, she'll show him where the stones are.
What ensues is a guided tour of hell in which a not-so-innocent American abroad comes face to face with the legacy of European imperialism in the heart of the African continent. Like Joseph Conrad, Graham Greene, and V.S. Naipaul before him, Jacobs reveals the limits of the western gaze, inverting the tropes of the white-savior novel to give us a story about a man who realizes you don't have to travel to another country to get lost, and you don't have to go home to be found.
Reviews / Votes
"If John le Carre were an American, his name would be Mark Jacobs."-Kinky Friedman
"Haunting, subtly imagined . . . a feat of bravura storytelling from a dauntless writer at the peak of his powers."
-A. Igoni Barrett, author of Blackass
"Smart but never cynical, humane and utterly human, this is an ode to the wretched of the earth and the angels that walk among them. Welcome a great American writer."
-Marita Golden, author of The Wide Circumference of Love
"Here is a novel of consequence, an intrepid foray into dark hearts seeking light, its storytelling sensibility so assured, so dignified, it makes you marvel.."
-William Giraldi, author of Hold the Dark
"Harrowing, humorous, youthful, and, in the end, wise."
-Richard Wiley, author of Soldiers in Hiding
"Silent Light is a violent immersion into the heart of darkness"
-Post and Courier
"Jacobs brings the reader face to face with the legacy of European imperialism in the heart of Africa . . . a story about a man who realizes you don't have to travel to another country to get lost, nor do you have to go home to be found."
-Midwest Book Review
Praise for A Handful of Kings:
"No writer is as brilliant as Mark Jacobs at exploring the rich fictional realm of the American abroad. He blends the literary traditions of Henry James and Graham Greene in work that is truly his own and truly wonderful. A Handful of Kings is his best book yet."
-Robert Olen Butler
"With [A Handful of Kings], Mark Jacobs has written . . . a novel rich with feeling for the mysterious world his characters inhabit, and he has put them, and us, through hell in a very small space. The novel is thrilling not for its action or some vestigial obedience to its supposed genre, but for its moments of human recognition and harrowing yet still human surprise."
-Tom Bissell
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 203 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
485 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-68219-443-0 (9781682194430)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
A former foreign service officer, Mark Jacobs has published more than 170 stories in magazines including The Atlantic, Playboy, The Baffler, The Kenyon Review, and The Southern Review. His story "How Birds Communicate" won The Iowa Review fiction prize. He has stories forthcoming in several magazines including The Hudson Review. His story "Dream State" won the Dr. T.J. Eckleburg Kafka Prize. His five books include A Handful of Kings, published by Simon and Shuster, and Stone Cowboy, by Soho Press, which won the Maria Thomas Award.