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Intimate Relations with Strangers: A Novel, by David Valentine Bernard
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If September 11, 2001, changed everything for America, then Intimate Relations with Strangers explores the long-term consequences of that change.
Set in a future where the threat of terrorism has seeped into everything, an American soldier finds himself at the vanguard of America's latest war. After a terrorist attack on the White House, America invades an African country in the Sahara. In the desert, the soldier begins to realize that memory itself can be used as a form of terrorism. There is love within him, but it is love for a woman he is not entirely sure is real. She had appeared miraculously when he was a boy growing up in the suburbs of Long Island, telling him things that turned his world upside-down. She had disappeared just as miraculously, leaving him to question his recollections and his sanity.
Years later, as a soldier in the war, he finds himself yearning for the woman and the impossible paradise she had described. In the Sahara, he sees horrors that seem to be the work of demons. After a year of war, his mind and soul are on the verge of collapse; by the time he sees the woman from his childhood marching through the desert, he has no choice but to surrender to his fantasies. In a world devastated by war and terrorism, only she gives him hope. When she again disappears, he is ready to move heaven and earth to find her. However, it is a quest that seems to have consequences for both his soul and America's.
Intimate Relations with Strangers is at once a twisted puzzle and a brutally honest exploration of the nature of reality, war, and love.
- Sales Rank: #8144472 in Books
- Published on: 2007-09-04
- Released on: 2007-09-04
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x .90" w x 6.00" l, .94 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 256 pages
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In this profoundly disturbing debut, Bernard, a native of Grenada who moved to New York City as a child, uses elements of time travel, fantasy and classic mystery to tell a love story set in an age of terrorism. The U.S. is enmeshed in an endless, unwinnable war in Africa, the president has been assassinated and the citizenry deceived. One day, Bernard's African protagonist, known only as the little boy, witnesses a beaten and bloody young girl seemingly being born from the very bowels of the earth, a horrifying event that will haunt him throughout his life. Sent to war upon graduation from high school, the boy (now the soldier) is taken prisoner. He eventually escapes, and the government touts him as a hero—which the soldier resists. Meanwhile, the soldier instinctively understands that he has always loved the girl he saw born now that she's grown, that she's somehow connected to him from another life, another world. Readers will remember this powerful, fable-like work of protest long after they've turned the last page. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"In this profoundly disturbing debut, Bernard...uses elements of time travel, fantasy and classic mystery to tell a love story set in an age of terrorism...Readers will remember this powerful, fable-like work of protest long after they've turned the last page."
-- Publishers Weekly (starred review)
About the Author
David Valentine Bernard, the author of seven novels, is currently finishing his PhD in sociology. Originally from the Caribbean nation of Grenada, he moved to Canada when he was four and to Brooklyn, New York, when he was nine. For more information, see www.dvbernard.com.
Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Distant Relations with Story
By Amazon Customer
When I reached the end of David Valentine Bernard's book, Intimate Relations with Strangers I immediately concluded that I had missed something terribly important. That, perhaps, the "hazy, chaotic crossfire" described in the book's dust-jacket had invaded my brain and rendered me unable to grasp the finer points of Bernard's meaning.
But after several days of simmering thought, I came to the conclusion that my initial reaction to the book's end is fair: while beautifully written, Bernard's book is little more than a disturbing, near-nihilistic love story cluttered by real world anti-war shrapnel.
The book is set in a near-future where the September 11 attacks, and resulting real-world wars, have given way to a second terrorist attack on the White House. In this world, a soldier is one of many who abandon his promising future to enter the military; answering a call of patriotism that only leads to fear, death, and destruction.
Within the soldier's youth, we discover that a bizarre childhood incident has enabled the soldier to transcend the world around him. He comes to believe that he has lived countless lives before his own and throughout each one loved the same woman. Eventually plagued by images and feelings of these past lives, he tries to survive his own fog of war while searching for the woman that makes his heart ache with love.
From a literary standpoint, Strangers is a wonderful read. Bernard's prose is smooth and metaphoric. The third person narration is overt, but done in such a way that we are able to feel and experience much of what the little boy/young man/soldier sees and hears. The dialogue is minimal, static and flat, but not bothersome given Bernard's precise ability to root you exactly where he wants you to be.
But, ah, where exactly does he want you, the reader, to be? Seemingly, if the tumbling allegory-like last few pages are any indication, Bernard's end point is starkly leftist: anti-war, anti-patriotic, anti-religious, and, shockingly, anti-love ... at least, as far as I can tell.
Using the soldier as an everyman, Bernard weaves his time-shift story through several volatile situations that expose the nature of war, patriotism, religion, and love. But as the soldier experiences more and more of these situations, his reactions become more and more Bernard's ranting playground: war is hell; patriotism is irrational; religion is a fool's gambit; and love is an unattainable heaven.
And while all of these sentiments - however childish and sad I may personally find them to be - are viable subjects for good literary chum, Bernard does not discuss them so much as present them through his own rose colored glasses; more personal grandstanding than introspective discussion.
Had Bernard forgone some of his literary efforts to make his solider so "universal" and made the solider more human and identifiable, than perhaps some of his ponderings may have taken firm root. But instead, we get an Adam and Even parable where the Adam is far too weak, far too thin to carry the kind of philosophical weight Bernard places on him.
Absent this necessary character meat, the book progressively atrophies into transparent skin and bones. Resulting in an ending that feels rushed, and depressingly tragic - one can only hope that people realize happiness in life is not as Bernard so poetically paints it: a worthy but ultimately hellish and futile pursuit.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
Excellent!
By Allison Hobbs, Author of A Bona Fide Gold Digger
In Intimate Relations with Strangers, the main character is at first a boy who has vague recollections of past lives, eerie encounters with a seeming alternate reality--a parallel universe. The complexities of his existence continue into manhood when he becomes a soldier fighting a senseless war.
This futuristic novel is dark and so intriguing that at times I closed the book in awe, needing to catch my breath before being pulled back into the atrocious war and the soldier's sad and complicated life.
Though this isn't a feel-good book and it certainly has no comedic passages, I found myself giving in to bursts of laughter throughout the novel. Admittedly, I have a morbid sense of humor but I suspect the author does too.
The unnamed characters crept into my dreams and the moody tone of the story has been lingering with me for days. David V. Bernard's writing is heartbreakingly beautiful and I look forward to reading more of this brilliant author's work.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
A disturbing look into alternate reality
By Peter Gitlin
I found Intimate Relations with Strangers to be both disturbing and thought-provoking. Rather than be put off by the randomness of events, or the thin characterizations, I allowed myself to be swept along in Bernard's alternate universes, and was transported. His tale at times felt like it was the story of MY life...not in particular events, but in the questioning of reality....sort of like David Byrne slapping his head and saying "this is not my beautiful house..."
A wonderful book...I look forward to more from Mr. Bernard.
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