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From National Book Award-nominated writer Andrea Lee comes a gorgeously evocative epic about love, clashing cultures, and identity, set in the tropical African island nation of Madagascar.
“People do mysterious things when they think they’ve found paradise,” reflects Shay, the heroine of Red Island House. When Shay, a Black American professor who’s always had an adventurous streak, marries Senna, an Italian businessman, she doesn’t imagine that her life’s greatest adventure will carry her far beyond their home in Milan to an idyllic stretch of beach in Madagascar, where Senna builds a flamboyant vacation villa. Before she knows it, Shay has become the somewhat reluctant mistress of a sprawling household, caught between her privileged American upbringing and her connection to the continent of her ancestors. So begins Shay's unlikely journey into the heart of a remote African country.
At first, she’s content to be an observer of the passionate affairs and fierce rivalries between foreigners and locals, but over twenty tumultuous years of marriage, as she and Senna raise children and establish their own rituals at the house, Shay finds herself drawn ever deeper into a place where a blend of sexual intrigue, sorcery, and corruption create a modern-day parable of colonial conquest. Soon the collision of cultures comes right to Shay’s door, forcing her to make a life-altering decision.
A mesmerizing epic of travel and self-discovery that evokes both Isabelle Allende's HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS and Chimamanda Ngozi Adicie's AMERIKANAH, Red Island House showcases an extraordinary literary voice and opens a door on a lush and unknown world.