"vous allez sans doute croire que j'invente pour avoir l'air mieux que je suis en réalité ou plus
malin ou pour me vanter d'avoir de la chance, mais c'est faux.
en plus, bien des choses qui me
sont arrivées jusqu'ici dans la vie - je vais en parler sous peu - me feraient plutôt passer pour
quelqu'un de mauvais ou de carrément bête ou
pour une victime de circonstances tragiques. [...]
quoi qu'il en soit, mon existence est devenue
intéressante, disons, l'été de mes quatorze ans.
j'étais à fond dans la fumette et comme j'avais pas d'argent pour m'acheter de l'herbe je me suis mis à fouiner tout le temps dans la maison pour dénicher des trucs à vendre - mais il n'y avait pas grand-chose." c'est alors que bone, avec sa crête, son nez percé et le tatouage fondateur de son identité - des os en croix -, prend la route d'une amérique en marge.
il ne sait pas encore qu'il va passer les plus beaux mois de sa vie avec un vieux sage rasta jamaïcain.

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Situé en 1936, sur les rives d'un lac des Adirondacks, un véritable thriller psychologique dont, jusqu'au désastre final dans les antichambres de la folie, les différents protagonistes, chacun porteur d'une intime blessure, reçoivent d'autrui un éclairage dérangeant sur eux-mêmes et sur les ténèbres de leurs motivations.

At the centre of Foregone is famed Canadian American leftist documentary filmmaker Leonard Fife, one of sixty thousand draft evaders and deserters who fled to Canada to avoid serving in Vietnam. Fife, now in his late seventies, is dying of cancer in Montreal and has agreed to a final interview in which he is determined to bare all his secrets at last, to demythologize his mythologized life. The interview is filmed by his acolyte and ex-star student, Malcolm MacLeod, in the presence of Fife's wife and alongside Malcolm's producer, cinematographer, and sound technician, all of whom have long admired Fife but who must now absorb the meaning of his astonishing, dark confession.

Imaginatively structured around Fife's secret memories and alternating between the experiences of the characters who are filming his confession, the novel challenges our assumptions and understanding about a significant lost chapter in American history and the nature of memory itself. Russell Banks gives us a daring and resonant work about the scope of one man's mysterious life, revealed through the fragments of his recovered past. Lire la suite Fermer

From one of Americas most beloved storytellers: a dazzling tapestry of love and faith, memory and imagination that questions what it means to look back and accept ones place in history. In 1971, Harley Mann revisits his childhood, recounting his family''s move to Floridas swamplands--mere miles away from what would become Disney World--to join a community of Shakers.

Eerily timely. Can whats gone wrong in the past offer keys to the future?

Property speculator Harley Mann begins recording his life story onto a reel-to-reel machine, reflecting on his youth in the early twentieth century. He recounts that after his fathers sudden death, his family migrated down to Florida to join a Shaker colony. Led by Elder John, a generous man with a mysterious past, the colony devoted itself to labor, faith, and charity, rejecting all temptations that lay beyond the property. Though this way of life initially saved Harley and his family from complete ruin, when Harley began falling in love with Sadie Pratt, a consumptive patient living on the grounds, his loyalty to the Shakers and their conservative worldview grew strained and, ultimately, broke.

As Harley dictates his story across more than half a century--meditating on youth, Floridas everchanging landscape, and the search for an American utopia--the truth about Sadie, Elder John, and the Shakers comes to light, clarifying the past and present alike. With an expert eye and stunning vision, Russell Banks delivers a wholly captivating portrait of a man navigating Americana and the passage of time. Lire la suite Fermer

Set in Liberia and the United States from 1975 through 1991, The Darling is the story of Hannah Musgrave, a political radical and member of the Weather Underground. Hannah flees America for West Africa, where she and her Liberian husband become friends of the notorious warlord and ex-president, Charles Taylor. Hannah's encounter with Taylor ultimately triggers a series of events whose momentum catches Hannah's family in its grip and forces her to make a heartrending choice.

A dazzling tapestry of love and faith, memory and imagination, The Magic Kingdom questions what it means to look back and accept one's place in history. With an expert eye and stunning vision, Russell Banks delivers a wholly captivating portrait of a man navigating Americana and the passage of time.

In 1971, a property speculator named Harley Mann begins recording his life story onto a reel-to-reel machine. Reflecting on his childhood in the early twentieth century, Harley recounts that after his father's sudden death, his family migrated down to Florida's swamplands - mere miles away from what would become Disney World - to join a community of Shakers. Led by Elder John, a generous man with a mysterious past, the colony devoted itself to labor, faith, and charity, rejecting all temptations that lay beyond the property. Though this way of life initially saved Harley and his family from complete ruin, when Harley began falling in love with Sadie Pratt, a consumptive patient living on the grounds, his loyalty to the Shakers and their conservative worldview grew strained and, ultimately, broke. As Harley dictates his story across more than half a century - meditating on youth, Florida's everchanging landscape, and the search for an American utopia - the truth about Sadie, Elder John, and the Shakers comes to light, clarifying the past and present alike. Lire la suite Fermer

Banks s narrative seductively juxtaposes rambles through lush volcanic mountains, white sand beaches and coral reefs with a barrage of memories of the hash he s made of his private life. The New York Times Book Review Now in his mid-seventies, Russell Banks has indulged his wanderlust for more than half a century. This longing for escape has taken him from the bright green islands and turquoise seas of the Caribbean islands to peaks in the Himalayas, the Andes, and beyond.

In each of these remarkable essays, Banks considers his life and the world. In Everglades National Park this perfect place to time-travel, he traces his own timeline. Recalling his trips to the Caribbean in the title essay, Voyager, Banks dissects his relationships with the four women who would become his wives. In the Himalayas, he embarks on a different quest of self-discovery. One climbs a mountain not to conquer it, but to be lifted like this away from the earth up into the sky, he explains.

Pensive, frank, beautiful, and engaging, Voyagerbrings together the social, the personal, and the historical, opening a path into the heart and soul of this revered writer. Lire la suite Fermer

Suffused with Russell Banks's trademark lyricism and reckless humor, the twelve stories in A Permanent Member of the Family examine the myriad ways we try--and sometimes fail--to connect with one another, as we seek a home in the world. In the title story, a father looks back on the legend of the cherished family dog whose divided loyalties mirrored the fragmenting of his marriage. "A Former Marine" asks, to chilling effect, if one can ever stop being a parent. And in the haunting, evocative "Veronica," a mysterious woman searching for her daughter may not be who she claims she is. Moving between the stark beauty of winter in upstate New York and the seductive heat of Florida, Banks's acute and penetrating collection demonstrates the range and virtuosity of both his narrative prowess and his startlingly panoramic vision of modern American life.
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Ces trois grands romans de Russell Banks explorent une Amérique en perte de ses repères, de ses idéaux et de ses enfants.