RAC The Question Author: Austin Clarke Trade Paperback Usually ships in 1-2 weeks This item's supplier can usually deliver to us in 1-2 weeks, but there may be a delay if the supplier runs out of stock. Our Price: $22.99 You could save $2.30 (10%) with our iREWARDS Program Ordering is 100% secure . Spend $39 or more at chapters.indigo.ca and your order ships free!. ( Details ) Dimensions: 256 Pages, 5.5 x 8.5 in | ISBN: 0771021283 Published: September 1999 | Published by McClelland & Stewart Our customers who bought this item also bought: Burridge Unbound (2000) Book ~ Alan Cumyn chapters.indigo Review There’s no such thing as a simple relationship between a man and a woman, as the narrator of this novel knows full well. The Question tells the story of one man’s attraction to a tender but withdrawn Filipino woman. From their first encounter, he feels himself drawn to her quiet charisma. They eventually marry, even though he knows almost nothing about her. When her past comes to light, the revelation leaves him stunned and the marriage in tatters. The book is a powerfully intricate exploration of love, trust and revelation. From the Publisher Following his highly acclaimed award-winning novel The Origin of Waves , Austin Clarke’s new book, The Question , is a tour de force that steps boldly into the arena of male-female relationships, with all their power struggles and complexities. When a man and a woman meet on a summer day, they begin a conversation which sets them on a course that will change both of their lives. During the long afternoon and into the night, their words weave a web of intimacy, and the man finds himself drawn into recollections of his childhood on an island in the Caribbean, and into reflections on his life in Toronto, where by day he works in a downtown court, listening to the plight of would-be refugees, and by night visits his lover, Room, a gentle, quiet Filipino woman. But who is she, this woman he meets at a birthday party given by her friend? What is behind her dark secrets? What can anyone know about another – really? As their relationship hurtles forward, he finds himself part of a strange triangle of affections, until events escalate, leading to the novel’s dramatic final scenes. Austin Clarke gathers the disparate strands of a man’s life and transforms them into a taut and hypnotic narrative. Infused with melancholy, humour, and a disarming honesty, The Question is a brilliantly conceived novel about the experience of dislocation and disillusionment, in which the clash of cultures is juxtaposed with the realm of sexual politics. Austin Clarke is one of the most original and accomplished voices in Canadian literature. The Question is his most compelling novel to date. About the Author Austin Clarke was born in Barbados, and came to Canada to attend university in 1955. He has had a varied and distinguished career as a broadcaster, civil-rights leader, diplomat, and professor. He has published eight novels, including the Toronto Trilogy, and The Origin of Waves , winner of the Rogers Communications Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize; five short-story collections, including When He Was Free and Young, He Used to Wear Silks, When Women Rule and There Are No Elders ; and three memoirs, Growing Up Stupid Under the Union Jack , winner of the 1980 Casa de las Americas Literary Prize of Cuba, A Passage Back Home , and, most recently, Pig Tails’n Breadfruit: Rituals of Slave Food. The Question is his ninth novel. Austin Clarke: A Biography by Stella Algoo-Baksh was published in 1994 and The Austin Clarke Reader , selected writings, in 1996. He is the recipient of numerous honours, including the 1999 W.O. Mitchell Literary Prize, the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Achievement Award, and the Order of Canada. Austin Clarke lives in Toronto. Review Quotes “[His] writing is playful and inventive; his use of language, his mastery of dialect, are seductive, lovely, precise.” – Globe and Mail “Clarke has a matchless ear for dialogue.…He succeeds in making his pages brilliant.” – Boston Globe “He never falls into the trap of making his characters vehicles for mouthing this or that political ideology. They are no more or less than the human beings that his literary alchemy brings to life.…” – Toronto Star “Clarke has long been the country’s outstanding chronicler of the West Indian immigrant experience.” – Maclean’s “A descriptive writer of hypnotic power.…The eye doesn’t so much follow printed words on the page as dance to the lyrical vigor and narrative thrust of [his] rhythmical prose.” – Kitchener-Waterloo Record Reader Reviews Average Reader Review: Number of Reviews: 2 1. Not Very Good Reviewer: Mike Taylor from Georgetown, Ontario Date: 11/4/2000 2:09:14 PM I though that the book was rather boring. I seemed to drag on and on. Are you sure that he marries the Filipino girl, like it says in the summary. I was my understanding that he married the girl that he met at the party. 2. far too cerebral Reviewer: barb from WPG MB Date: 3/2/2000 12:35:44 AM The title and jacket notes attracted me to this book - what could be more intriguing than a question and conversation that changes two people's lives? Unfortunatley, the book doesn't deliver. It is written in far too intellectual and literary style for any book lover who simply wants to become engrossed in a good story. I didn't like the characters and really didn't care about them at all. It's only a 240 page book and it took three tries to get past page 30. Don't waste your time. 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