Book Description

Broken Wings is mainstream fiction. It is the extraordinary story of Daniel ‘Surefire’ Lasky – an Apache-raised tracker and lion-killing Big Game Hunter – who is commissioned to find the grave of a missionary last seen in Northern Rhodesia, 30 years before. What starts out as a search for a missing priest, grows into a dangerous mission, evolving into a quest for existential meaning. What Surefire finds in Africa’s cursed Shinshika Mountains will change forever his cynical world view and cavalier lifestyle. This powerful and inspiring story, filled with drama, adventure, passion and love, is set to become another international bestseller for Keverne – a natural story-teller whose talent is richly expressed in this unique book. ACCLAIM FOR GLORY KEVERNE'S A MAN CANNOT CRY'. A PEOPLE magazine's Top Ten Book of the Year in America. A BOOKSELLER'S Most Promising Title in Britain. A MAN CANNOT CRY is the finest first novel I have ever handled (including THE COLLECTOR by John Fowles, and THE WATER IS WIDE by Pat Conroy). Close to 50 years in publishing as a writer, editor and agent and I have never heard such a story of how a relatively uneducated girl of eighteen in a little copper mining town in Northern Rhodesia, married to a miner, began a powerful first novel of 500,000 words (before cutting), and spent years writing it under the most amazing circum- stances. I have never been as overwhelmed by a first novel. She is simply a born story teller.' Julian Bach, New York Agent and a former editor of LIFE magazine. Gloria, you have a wonderful novel here. It moved me to tears and its editing has been a labor of love for me. A Man Cannot Cry has given me great pleasure and I thank you for it. Eventually the world will too.' Hillel Black, William Morrow, USA. This excellent novel is an African answer to THE THORN BIRDS. With first rate characterization and an unusual and ingenious plot, the combination of Africa, the Quaker settlement and medicine, is exceptionally good.' P Parkin, HarperCollins, UK. A MAN CANNOT CRY pulses with the life of Northern Rhodesia and all Africa besides. The story begins in 1958 with the arrival of Dr Than Profane at a Quaker mission to see his dying father. He does not intend to stay but before long he is taking Africa like a drug' and thriving like cut grass growing wild' He quickly earns the affectionate name Bwana Cowboy'. His methods and sometimes his morals are characteristically American, rough-hewn, deaf to both danger and defeat Inevitably he clashes with his conservative hosts. But he does much better with the local tribes there is a wonderful passage where he is trained as a witchdoctor and some of the book's finest characters, lovingly portrayed, are African The book is alive with people, places, and their interactions: births and deaths in squalid hut and shiny hospital, cruel savages and a tame leopard; the glory of a canoe trip on the Zambezi and a white man dressing as a witchdoctor to fight a smallpox epidemic; and in the background the murmuring voices of a changing Africa, Lumumba, Tshombe, Kasavubu, Kaunda. A MAN CANNOT CRY dramatizes all the conflicts and parallels between the white world and the black, the old Africa and the new, the familiar and the alien, the uncertain fears of the mind and the sure knowledge of the heart. Long, rich and detailed, it is a wonderful book.' Alan Ryan, THE WASHINGTON POST. An enormous array of human emotion is