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    My Driver
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    My Driver
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    My Driver
    Ebook352 pages5 hours

    My Driver

    By Maggie Gee

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Vanessa Henman, a plucky but accident-prone white writer, flies from London to Uganda for an African writers' conference. She also means to visit her former cleaner, Ugandan Mary Tendo, now the successful Executive Housekeeper of Kampala's up-market Sheraton Hotel. But Mary has her own agenda: her son Jamil is missing, and she has secretly summoned Vanessa's beloved ex-husband Trevor, a plumber, to her home village to build a new well. Vanessa sets off alone on safari to distant Bwindi Impenetrable Forest to see the mountain gorillas. But she quarrels with her driver and a bloody war closes in on Bwindi from Congo. Can anyone save her? Will Mary Tendo find her son? One of her strongest novels to date…fast-moving, energetic, constantly surprising' Hilary Mantel Maggie Gee has never written better' Rose Tremain A tour de force - brilliantly structured, surprising, humane, and suspenseful' Elaine Showalter Brilliant…just brilliant…this book deserves to be published in every language' Hillary Jordan 'Executed with a lovely, light touch ... an immensely enjoyable novel.' Lionel Shriver, Daily Telegraph 'Worldy, witty, enjoyable, impressive' Doris Lessing 'Sparky, funny and terrifically entertaining' Guardian
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTelegram Books
    Release dateApr 19, 2012
    ISBN9781846591334
    Unavailable
    My Driver
    Author

    Maggie Gee

    Maggie Gee is the author of twelve critically acclaimed novels, including The White Family (shortlisted for the Orange and IMPAC prizes), and a memoir, My Animal Life. She is a Fellow and Vice-President of the Royal Society of Literature, and Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. Her work has been translated into fourteen languages. Maggie Gee was awarded an OBE in 2012 for services to literature.

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    Reviews for My Driver

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      Vanessa Henman is an English writer invited to an international writers conference in Kampala, Uganda. While there she intends to make a surprise visit to see Mary Tendo, the woman who used to be her cleaner. Meanwhile Mary has invited Vanessa's ex-husband, Trevor, to Uganda to help fix in her village. Trevor and Vanessa don't tell each other about their trips, and for much of the story they are either turning up in the same place within a few minutes of each other or they see but don't recognise each other. Their story is interspersed with Mary's, that of her lost son who has become a child soldier and V & T's son and grandson in London. The threat of war between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo is always in the background - Gee reminds us that the scramble for Africa's rich resources continues unabated.This was an enjoyable book, but it didn't blow me away. The 'will they meet/won't they meet' aspect of V & T's story felt contrived after a while and the huge coincidence at the end tied things up too nicely to be believeable.I did enjoy Vanessa's character although she is a hard woman to like. Her delusions of grandeur about her status as a writer, her anxiety to be liked and respected and her fears about travelling alone in Africa may make her seem arrogant and unpleasant, but they are very human frailties and the more I think about her the more I feel for her.