Gilgamesh (London) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
An engrossing story that bristles with local detail, whether in rural Australia, England, or the Caucasus. Stoutly eschewing sentimentality, London reveals her contrasting characters as flawed beings that thieve, betray, and hold deep grudges; however, the love that holds together Edith, Leopold, and the Armenian’s son overcomes all.
Canberra Times (Australia)


London’s narrative is continuously articulated by unobtrusive yet carefully plotted references to titanic off-stage events. . . . These background events serve to emphasize the self-centered and individual aspects of her heroine’s quest. . . . Her prose is likewise unforced, adroit and understated, the equivalent of a classical string quartet rather than an Eroica Symphony in the Romantic mode. . . . Given the increasingly democratic nature of Western societies, how to elevate ordinary lives to a heroic or tragic level has been a noticeable preoccupation of literary writers for more than a century. . . . It is part of the overall restraint of London's work that she raises this central question but does not force a dogmatic answer upon the reader.
Tim Gibbons - West Australian


To get a sense of what Gilgamesh is like, imagine one of those Outback bodice-rippers put on a strict diet, pared down to essentials, purged of the excess water weight of set pieces involving eroticized sheep-shearing and adorable kangaroos.
Francine Prose - New York Times Book Reviw


Joan London's glancing, iridescent, intelligent first novel doesn't do anything so crass as suggest a moral. But if it did, it might come close to the truth old Frank glimpsed hazily on his deathbed: Whatever "the point of it" is, it still has to be worked out anew in each generation. Gilgamesh and his story are there to remind us that this is as close to immortality as we may ever get.
Elizabeth Ward - Washington Post


A compelling debut....The epic scope of the novel is complemented by an extraordinary sensitivity to detail. From the intractable Australian outback to a shabby-genteel London rooming house, from the Orient Express to the Armenian city of Yerevan simmering under Soviet occupation, the settings glow with a dream like intensity, evoking both the allure of adventure and the ambivalent embrace of home.
Amanda Heller - Boston Globe


This novel by Australian Joan London was a finalist for several major prizes in her native land, and it's easy to see why. Its story—of a 17-year-old girl living in a remote corner of the country who bears a child by a briefly visiting Armenian and then follows him to his native land, in the Soviet Union on the brink of WWII—is riveting in its strangeness and immediacy, evoking with stark power a world almost inconceivably isolated and remote. Right from the start, when Frank, a veteran of WWI, brings his nurse and inamorata Ada with him to live on his farm in southwestern Australia, we are in a vividly realized and elemental landscape. And when their daughter Edith is seduced by the strange Aram (the driver for her mother's British friend), gives birth to baby Jim and a few months later sets off to seek the boy's elusive father in his remote country, one has entered the realm of the legendary and epic journey conjured by the book's title. The chapters covering Edith's sojourn in Soviet Armenia, threatened by both Germans and Russians, are unforgettable, brought to life in myriad brilliant details. Only when Edith returns to Australia after the war and gradually picks up the threads of her old life does the story begin to lose its grip. London's stark prose and command of a wonderfully maintained brooding atmosphere, however, make this an adventure to remember. London is the author of two story collections, but this novel marks her U.S. debut. It can be confidently handsold to admirers of Tim Winton and Kate Grenville.
Publishers Weekly


Edith Clark is only 17 when two strangers pierce the insular world she has inhabited since birth. Full of stories both real and fabricated-including that of Mesopotamian King Gilgamesh and his partner, Enkidu-British cousin Leopold and his Armenian friend Aram introduce Edith to a life in which adventure is routine and opportunity abundant. Against a backdrop of pre-World War II anxiety, Edith and Aram bond, and Edith becomes pregnant. Although Aram leaves Edith's rural Australian home before she discovers the pregnancy, the book never descends into soap opera. Instead, it follows Edith as she struggles to raise her son while simultaneously satisfying her need for self-fulfillment. The novel, short-listed for Australia's The Age Book of the Year Award, explores numerous themes, including friendship, loyalty, mental illness, and the role of mourning in daily life. It also examines race, class, and gender, but with such subtlety it feels accidental. London (daughter of Jack and author of two story collections, Sister Ships and Letter to Constantine) writes with power, vision, and poignancy. Highly recommended. —Eleanor J. Bader, Brooklyn, NY.
Library Journal


First novel, as well as a first US appearance, for Australian author London: the story of an Australian woman who travels halfway around the world in pursuit of the man she loves. Edith Clark grew up in the outback of southwestern Australia, but her roots-and heart-were elsewhere. Her parents were English immigrants who sought a new start after WWI, but Edith's father Frank knew nothing of farm life and failed badly at it. He died while Edith was still a girl, leaving her, her mother, and sister to fend for themselves. The genteel Ada, descended into chronic depression, while Edith's sister Frances, swallowed up in a religious mania, became a preacher. Edith, more conventionally, fell in love with a bad man: Armenian archaeologist Aram Sinanien, a friend of Edith's cousin Leopold, who visited the Clarks on his return from a dig in 1937. An ardent nationalist, Aram left Edith pregnant in Australia to return to his homeland (under Soviet control) to fight with the underground independence movement. Edith gave birth to his son, then set off, baby in tow, to find him in Armenia. A difficult trip in the best of times, this was almost a suicide mission after the outbreak of WWII. But Edith crossed the Soviet borders with surprising ease and quickly made contact with friends of Aram's, who agreed to help her search for him. She was able, too, against all odds, to travel mostly unmolested with her infant son through the war zones. Perhaps she should have doubted her own luck a bit, or stopped to wonder whether she was being used as bait by the NKVD. But such considerations were lost on Edith, who (like all true lovers) never stopped to weigh the pros and cons of her quest. London's story gradually works up a head of steam and by the end becomes quite engrossing—even if the two-souls-caught-in-the-maelstrom-of-history theme comes across as a poor knockoff of Dr. Zhivago.
Kirkus Reviews