From the bestselling author of The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon comes a novel that takes the reader on an epic journey from war-ravaged nineteenth-century Europe to antebellum America. A bereft child, a freed African slave, and the rich history of Portugal?s secret Jews collide memorably in Richard Zimler?s novel--a work of historical fiction played out against a backdrop of war and chaos that unforgettably mines the mysteries of devotion, betrayal, guilt, and forgiveness.
Hunting Midnight (Zarco 2)
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This warm-hearted novel spans three continents through the lifetime of its narrator, John Zarco Stewart. He is seven years old when we first meet him in his home town of Porto - the year is 1798 and he is waiting out a storm in an old bookshop. An impulsive child, half-Scottish, he soon makes friends with another street urchin and before long they are getting up to mischief. One day, when they are setting free birds from their market cages, John feels a grasp at his shoulder. A strange man with glinting eyes reveals to John a secret: that he is Jewish, not Portuguese - a dangerous thing to be in the Iberian Peninsula, where Jews have been hiding their faith for three hundred years. Soon after, his father returns from a sea voyage with Midnight, a bushman from Africa who measures his age by the year the wildflowers blossomed. Though John initially dislikes him, one evening he finds out just what a good friend Midnightcan be...Themany-layered, mysticalstory twists and turns through landscapes of all colours. While its paceand ambitious breadth of vision sometimes detracts from characterisation, overall the narrative is an engaging, easy read. --Kirkus UK
Nicholas Shakespeare, author of Bruce Chatwin and the Dancer Upstairs
'I defy anyone to put this book down. It's a wonderful novel.@
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
For someone who enjoys a good mind absorbing novel, this is a great one to try, that is a bit different from other novels. It charts the developing friendship between a young lad and his family with a freed slave who is also a 'healer'. Then, without spoiling the plot, something happens that tears the friendship apart. Join the lad as he journeys from childhood with his tragic friends, through adulthood where he discovers what happened in his family's past, and then as he searches in America for his long lost friend.
Pretty much 'un-put-downable'!
10 of 12 people found the following review helpful
By KitChat
Format:Paperback
This is a long book at over 600 pages of small print, but I devoured it in a little over two days. I even got up to continue reading it in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep, I needed to know where it was taking me.
It's sometimes strange being given a novel as a gift, but the friends who gave this to me got it just right even though we haven't known each other long. It was favourably reviewed in the 'Algarve Resident' so they purchased it at the Griffin Bookshop in Almancil,Portugal, which serves the English-speaking community of the Algarve so well.
The connection with Portugal is that the book starts in Oporto in 1800. Napoleon is marching across Europe and the Jews of Portugal, although 'hidden' and baptised, are suffering the threat of a renewed Inquisition. Although some of the consequences of this are frightening and unjust, John, the hero of the tale is from a loving and open minded background, which somehow tempers the violence and injustice. I identified with John strongly, being both Jewish and having a Scottish father myself, and I spend a few months a year in Portugal. My family might also have welcomed an African stranger into their family as did John's.
The story proceeds from here into areas of mysticism and connections with nature, folk medicine and the Earth. Into this are interwoven tales of love and desire, of loss and tragedy and an epic search over Continents. I cried when I finished reading the book, not because it was sad, but it had touched my emotions so many times I couldn't bear the ending of it. It is now out on loan to special friends who will appreciate it.... but I shall want it back soon to re-read and return to the adventure. I'm sure I shall cry again!
It's sometimes strange being given a novel as a gift, but the friends who gave this to me got it just right even though we haven't known each other long. It was favourably reviewed in the 'Algarve Resident' so they purchased it at the Griffin Bookshop in Almancil,Portugal, which serves the English-speaking community of the Algarve so well.
The connection with Portugal is that the book starts in Oporto in 1800. Napoleon is marching across Europe and the Jews of Portugal, although 'hidden' and baptised, are suffering the threat of a renewed Inquisition. Although some of the consequences of this are frightening and unjust, John, the hero of the tale is from a loving and open minded background, which somehow tempers the violence and injustice. I identified with John strongly, being both Jewish and having a Scottish father myself, and I spend a few months a year in Portugal. My family might also have welcomed an African stranger into their family as did John's.
The story proceeds from here into areas of mysticism and connections with nature, folk medicine and the Earth. Into this are interwoven tales of love and desire, of loss and tragedy and an epic search over Continents. I cried when I finished reading the book, not because it was sad, but it had touched my emotions so many times I couldn't bear the ending of it. It is now out on loan to special friends who will appreciate it.... but I shall want it back soon to re-read and return to the adventure. I'm sure I shall cry again!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By riverwillow
Format:Paperback
I wish I could write like Richard Zimler as he's that rare combination of a great storyteller who can write in a literary, yet, accessible style, which is emotional without being overly sentimental.
John Zarco Stewart, the main protagonist, is an engaging and complex character, whose relationships with his friends, Daniel, Violeta and especially Midnight, the African John's father rescues from slavery, dominate John's story. I've been on an emotional journey with John as he crossed continents and comes to term with his own humanity and that of those surround him. Zimler's prose and magical mixing of history and fiction is superb, but at the heart of the novel are his characters. Midnight, the Bushman who sometimes drinks so much that his belly swells to near bursting. John Stewart Zarco whose family is destroyed by betrayal and who is quick to adapt and learn that he cannot always has what he wants, but also discovers the redemption that comes through love and the power of freedom. Superb and never sentimental, this novel portrays the evils of slavery and how a person's spirit is buried alive, 'only one stone at a time' and that 'slavery keeps our spirits rom fulfillment and realization.'
John Zarco Stewart, the main protagonist, is an engaging and complex character, whose relationships with his friends, Daniel, Violeta and especially Midnight, the African John's father rescues from slavery, dominate John's story. I've been on an emotional journey with John as he crossed continents and comes to term with his own humanity and that of those surround him. Zimler's prose and magical mixing of history and fiction is superb, but at the heart of the novel are his characters. Midnight, the Bushman who sometimes drinks so much that his belly swells to near bursting. John Stewart Zarco whose family is destroyed by betrayal and who is quick to adapt and learn that he cannot always has what he wants, but also discovers the redemption that comes through love and the power of freedom. Superb and never sentimental, this novel portrays the evils of slavery and how a person's spirit is buried alive, 'only one stone at a time' and that 'slavery keeps our spirits rom fulfillment and realization.'
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absorbing - Heart wrenching - Engaging
The more I read the more involved I became. I cried often as the way it was written you could truly feel for the characters I felt overwhelmed. Read more
Published 20 days ago by Cath
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beyond Midnight...........
........is how long I stayed up reading this book, every night for a week. Totally absorbing, and deeply moving. This is simply the best book I have read in a very, very long time.
Published 17 months ago by A. Fox
3.0 out of 5 stars
disappointing
The story has an interesting premise but it travels too far and wide without a coherent reason. I felt there were just too many themes that never properly linked up. Read more
Published on 22 May 2004
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