The Darling

By: Russell Banks

Narrated by: Mary Beth Hurt

Length: 14 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

The Darling is Hannah Musgrave's story, told emotionally and convincingly years later by Hannah herself. A political radical and member of the Weather Underground, Hannah has fled America to West Africa, where she and her Liberian husband become friends and colleagues of Charles Taylor, the notorious warlord and now ex-president of Liberia. When Taylor leaves for the United States in an effort to escape embezzlement charges, he's immediately placed in prison. Hannah's encounter with Taylor in America ultimately triggers a series of events whose momentum catches Hannah's family in its grip and forces her to make a heartrending choice.

Set in Liberia and the United States from 1975 through 1991, The Darling is a political/historical thriller, reminiscent of Graham Greene and Joseph Conrad, that explodes the genre, raising serious philosophical questions about terrorism, political violence, and the clash of races and cultures.

©2004 Russell Banks (P)2004 BBC Audiobooks America, Inc. & HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Critic reviews

• Audie Award Winner, Fiction (Unabridged), 2005

"A rich and complex look at the searing connections between the personal and the political, this is one of Banks's most powerful novels yet." (Publishers Weekly)
"Banks brings the full weight of his storytelling genius and psychological perceptiveness to a novel as compulsively readable as it is eviscerating in its dramatization of cultural divides, political mayhem, psychotic violence, and profound alienation." (Booklist)

Please!

I am so very impressed with Mr. Banks’ skills of portrayal, organization, and clarity of presentation as well as the reader’s skills.
The only thing I disliked is the reality of human greed and murderous rage behind the story.
I’d recommend this book to any human old enough to feel great sadness and to arouse a great passion to improve.

Deeply depressing

I slogged through this book, determined to see it through to the end, but it was a struggle all the way. I never felt any affinity with any of the characters and, indeed, was ready to have the worst happen to all of them , just to get the story over with. The author never gets us to identify with the heroine at all: she is just a spoiled, rich brat from a well to do family who rebels against her WASP-ish upbringing by heading on a self-destructive path to Africa. Unless you are a Patty Hearst wanna-be, and long for the days when "social activism" meant blowing up Federal buildings, I suggest you avoid this book

Not Worth Your Time

Surprised that I had the patience to make it to the end. One of the most tedious books I've listened to.

Nothing I Can Empathize With

Would you try another book from Russell Banks and/or Mary Beth Hurt?

No. I found the writing style to be boring, drawn out, and hard to enjoy. The narration was monotonous and boring as well.

What do you think your next listen will be?

Something lighthearted!

How did the narrator detract from the book?

She was monotonous and made me dislike the main character. I feel that with a better narrator, I could have had some sympathy for the main character.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Anger, mostly. I felt that the main character was contemptible and I couldn't find any single place where I empathized with her. She was racist is a backwards way, terrible as a wife and mother, and although she acknowledge these traits, she whined and made it seem like there was some huge government conspiracy out to get her all the time. Everything was about HER, and her whole attitude sickened and repulsed me.

Any additional comments?

Despite hating the main character, I did feel that I learned something from the book. I learned about Liberia, its history, etc. That was the only redeeming quality in a book that I feel was a waste of time.

Chimp Fantasties Not For Me

This book didn't catch me - I tried for an hour or so. But it was too disjointed - distinguishing between past and present, location, etc. Especially her fantasies about chimps real or not - I just didn't care! Teh was not a sense at all about where the book was heading and passion for her or her characters (especially when she tells us that the fate of her chimps was much more inportant than knowing what happened to her three boys in Liberia - it doesn't ring true. Never finished the book.

Just couldn’t get through it

I gave it the college try, but after 3+ hours, I just realized I didn’t give a darn about what had happened, was happening, or would happen to the main character. I could not relate to her on any level, nor did I want to try. (The narrator had a pleasant voice, but even at 1.4x speed, everything was so dull and plodding.)

utterly without emotion

What would have made The Darling better?

A protagonist that you understood. Nothing about her life explained her utter lack of feeling for anything or anyone. Even the supposed commitment she had to her Dreamers -- the chimpanzees she cared for in Liberia -- were described and never felt. The only upside was learning a bit of 20th century Liberian history although nothing could undo the unexplainably pathological leading protagonist whose actions suited the novelist and the history he wanted to impart but whose actions never grew organically from the character he described.

Would you ever listen to anything by Russell Banks again?

No, his inability to get inside of this woman is a downfall. His endless distractions which keep you, as a reader, from moving forward are equally frustrating rather than enlightening.

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

A warmer reader might have mitigated the coldness of Hannah Musgrave.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The Darling?

I would have cut everything in America except what she fled from and then would have concentrated, from her earliest days in Liberia, on the chimps and what she endured, and they endured, during her time there.

Any additional comments?

He should never, never think for a moment that he understands a woman although no man comes alive in this book, either. Everyone is playing a role in servitude of his version (probably correct) of this period in Liberia.