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Night Must Wait
Four best friends—one is a liar and a murderer…
In the mid-1960s, Kate Wilton, an extraordinary painter who could mimic any of the great artists, sells her three friends the dream that anything is possible in Nigeria, including wealth and fame. None of these brilliant, ambitious women comprehend that civil war will blow their world asunder. They should be careful what they wish for.
Gilman practices medicine—a miracle worker in rural villages—and finds love with a mercenary in the chaos of battle. Lindsay buys up debts of important men, and under the cover of a U. S. Embassy job consolidates influence with a private web of spies. And Sandy discovers she can become the woman she thought unattainable, in a place that never demands she grow up.
One of these four is willing to sacrifice the others…
Editorial Reviews:
"Set in the mid-1960s, at a flashpoint in Nigeria’s volatile new post-colonial history, Night Must Wait is a riveting novel of bravery and danger, friendship and betrayal. Four young, white American women have come to this land of opportunity to find their separate futures. What they find is civil war at the national and personal levels. Robin Winter’s spellbinding story is taut with surprise." —John M. Daniel, author of Behind the Redwood Door
"Four women’s lives interweave in a complex, compelling narrative. Deep, insightful characterization, rendered in elegant prose. A strong sense of place. The heat and the horror of war comes through in every line. The sweep of the cultural landscape is overpowering." —John Reed, author of Thirteen Mountain
"Night Must Wait is a knockout. Robin Winter really delivers the goods with her twisting tale of four ambitious women, good intentions gone awry, and civil war in Nigeria." —Norb Vonnegut, author of The Trust
"Night Must Wait is a novel of beauty and brutality as complex as the history of Nigeria and as subtle and passionate as the characters who inhabit this powerful work." —Jervey Tervalon, author of Understand This
"Robin Winter’s portrait of a world unraveling into chaos is equal parts harrowing and elegant, a master work of fiction. Reminiscent of Denis Johnson’s Tree of Smoke, and more than comparable, her novel is quite astonishing." —Monte Schulz, author of This Side of Jordan
"The world Robin Winter takes us to in Night Must Wait is not the fantasy of Dorothy and Toto, no longer in Kansas; it is the scary, all too-real Africa. The women pushing the story forward are light years beyond Dorothy, facing down personal and political demons of the twenty-first century." —Shelly Lowenkopf, author of The Fiction Writer's Handbook
In the mid-1960s, Kate Wilton, an extraordinary painter who could mimic any of the great artists, sells her three friends the dream that anything is possible in Nigeria, including wealth and fame. None of these brilliant, ambitious women comprehend that civil war will blow their world asunder. They should be careful what they wish for.
Gilman practices medicine—a miracle worker in rural villages—and finds love with a mercenary in the chaos of battle. Lindsay buys up debts of important men, and under the cover of a U. S. Embassy job consolidates influence with a private web of spies. And Sandy discovers she can become the woman she thought unattainable, in a place that never demands she grow up.
One of these four is willing to sacrifice the others…
Editorial Reviews:
"Set in the mid-1960s, at a flashpoint in Nigeria’s volatile new post-colonial history, Night Must Wait is a riveting novel of bravery and danger, friendship and betrayal. Four young, white American women have come to this land of opportunity to find their separate futures. What they find is civil war at the national and personal levels. Robin Winter’s spellbinding story is taut with surprise." —John M. Daniel, author of Behind the Redwood Door
"Four women’s lives interweave in a complex, compelling narrative. Deep, insightful characterization, rendered in elegant prose. A strong sense of place. The heat and the horror of war comes through in every line. The sweep of the cultural landscape is overpowering." —John Reed, author of Thirteen Mountain
"Night Must Wait is a knockout. Robin Winter really delivers the goods with her twisting tale of four ambitious women, good intentions gone awry, and civil war in Nigeria." —Norb Vonnegut, author of The Trust
"Night Must Wait is a novel of beauty and brutality as complex as the history of Nigeria and as subtle and passionate as the characters who inhabit this powerful work." —Jervey Tervalon, author of Understand This
"Robin Winter’s portrait of a world unraveling into chaos is equal parts harrowing and elegant, a master work of fiction. Reminiscent of Denis Johnson’s Tree of Smoke, and more than comparable, her novel is quite astonishing." —Monte Schulz, author of This Side of Jordan
"The world Robin Winter takes us to in Night Must Wait is not the fantasy of Dorothy and Toto, no longer in Kansas; it is the scary, all too-real Africa. The women pushing the story forward are light years beyond Dorothy, facing down personal and political demons of the twenty-first century." —Shelly Lowenkopf, author of The Fiction Writer's Handbook
- GenresAfrica
394 pages, ebook
First published October 26, 2012
6 people are currently reading
207 people want to read
About the author
Robin Winter
3 books24 followersRobin started writing with a fully illustrated manuscript 'Chickens and their Diseases' when in second grade in Nigeria. Some years later she and her family were evacuated as the Nigerian Civil War began in 1967. It is from her memories of Nigeria that her novel Night Must Wait, released in 2012 by Imajin Books, evolved. Her first science fiction novel, Future Past was released May first, 2013 from Eternal Press. Next, in late April 2015 her thriller/science fiction novel Watch the Shadows will be published by White Whisker Press. Think of a strong smart young woman in Southern California planning to become a scientist, who is faced by the odd gradual disappearance of the local homeless, and a sequence of strange events concerning ducks-- which mount to a personally threatening point. Call it science fiction with aliens for garnish.
Robin Winter has published science fiction and horror stories, won awards for writing, and in 2011 had a collection of her short stories performed in Los Angeles' New Short Fiction Series.
As a child Robin lived in a number of places beginning with 'N'; Nebraska, Nigeria, New Hampshire and New York. Now living in California, she has no intention of going back to any of the preceding.
Her other career centers on oil painting, both landscape and figure. Her husband, a paleocarpologist, corrects the science in both her paintings and her writings, and has acquired considerable skill in ducking flying objects. They have a teenage daughter who also loves to write, and three cats who don't.
Connect with Robin at her Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Robin-...
or at her blog: http://www.winterobin.com/
Visit her web page at http://www.robinwinter.net/ or robin-winter.com and
find her on Twitter @winterobin13
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 6, 2023
Gut wrenching novel set in the Nigerian-Biafra civil war.
June 8, 2013
Kate Wilton war die treibende Kraft, die ihre drei Freundinnen in den 60ern mit nach Nigeria zog. 1958 treffen sich Wilton, Sandy, Gilman und Lindsey am amerikanischen Wellesley College. Obwohl von ihren Professorinnen gefördert, hat den vier Akademikerinnen ihre Heimat nach dem Universitätsabschluss nicht mehr als die Warteschleife zur Heirat zu bieten. "Frauen sind die Neger der weißen Welt", posaunt Kate, die mit philippinisch-chinesischem Blut als einzige der vier Frauen ein Bewusstsein für Rassenkonflikte haben könnte. Wilton (wie Alexandra Gilman wird sie mit ihrem Nachnamen gerufen, um sich von Mitstudentinnen gleichen Namens abzugrenzen) ist als adoptiertes Kind eines amerikanischen Lehrers in Nigeria aufgewachsen. Die vier, die wie weibliche Musketiere wirken, suchen in Afrika Freiheit, wollen aber auch die Aufbruchstimmung am Ende der Kolonialzeit auskosten. 1966 geraten sie in ein Land im beginnenden Bürgerkrieg. Muslimische und christliche Stämme kämpfen in Nigeria mit der Hilfe von ausländischen Söldnern um politische Macht und Einkünfte aus reichen Erdölvorkommen. Biafra, die Region zu der das Nigerdelta mit seinen Erdölvorkommen gehört, wird sich in spektakulären Bildern der Weltöffentlichkeit als Hungerregion einprägen. Wilton fühlt sich seit ihrer Kindheit den Nigerianern eng verbunden. Sie ist als Ornithologin der Universität Lagos tätig. Gilman, inzwischen Ärztin, lässt sich von Wilton an ihrer Berufsehre packen und will einfach irgendwo "helfen". Diese beiden Frauen stehen im Mittelpunkt der ersten Hälfte des Romans und wirken in ihren Motiven sehr glaubwürdig. Lindsay residiert als taffe Geschäftsfrau mit einer zusätzlichen Mission, die anfangs noch undurchsichtig bleibt, in der relativen Sicherheit der Hauptstadt Lagos. Sandy bleibt in ihrer Rolle als Lindsays Lebensgefährtin ohne eigenen Beruf farblos. Robin Winter konzentriert sich anfangs auf Gilmans Arbeit in einem Behelfshospital in Biafra. Gemeinsam mit einem weiteren ausländischen Arzt steckt Gilman buchstäblich bis zu den Ellbogen in schwersten Kriegsverletzungen. Ihre Liebe zu einem amerikanischen Söldnerführer bringt Gilman als moderne Florence Nightingale in die absurde Situation, täglich die Patienten zusammenflicken zu müssen, die Tom Jantors Männer zuvor niedergeschossen haben. Gilman bringt den Galgenhumor mit, ohne den man auf diesem Schlachtfeld nicht überleben kann. Doch ihre Kräfte sind nicht unbegrenzt. Auch die Ärzte und Schwestern hungern in Biafra. Bis wieder eine Hilfslieferung über dem Rebellengebiet abgeworfen wird, löffeln sie ihre fade Suppe in sich hinein, um nicht vor Überarbeitung am OP-Tisch zu kollabieren. Man riecht und schmeckt als Leser förmlich Blut und Angst, fiebert mit den Malaria-Kranken und ekelt sich vor den Parasiten, die die Wunden der Soldaten besiedeln.
Robin Winter, die selbst in Nigeria gelebt hat, wagt in ihrem Erstling einen raffinierten Plot mit wechselndem Focus auf Figuren und Schauplätze zu beiden Seiten der Kampflinien des Biafrakriegs. Auch wenn ich gern gleich zu Anfang mehr über die Motive der vier Frauen und die Bande zwischen ihnen erfahren hätte, bin ich von Winters schonungslosem Blick auf die Kriegshandlungen und auf die sich wandelnde Beziehung zwischen Weißen unter Schwarzen begeistert.
Robin Winter, die selbst in Nigeria gelebt hat, wagt in ihrem Erstling einen raffinierten Plot mit wechselndem Focus auf Figuren und Schauplätze zu beiden Seiten der Kampflinien des Biafrakriegs. Auch wenn ich gern gleich zu Anfang mehr über die Motive der vier Frauen und die Bande zwischen ihnen erfahren hätte, bin ich von Winters schonungslosem Blick auf die Kriegshandlungen und auf die sich wandelnde Beziehung zwischen Weißen unter Schwarzen begeistert.
January 27, 2013
Masterful. Authentic. Gritty. Gripping. Complex characters. Night Must Wait has all the elements to make this novel so much greater than just a war story. Winter's subtleties in depicting the characters, the setting, the basic elements of Africa add depth and dimension much appreciated by this reader.
I lived in Mali at the time and could not visit Nigeria because of the war, but did travel through Niger, Benin (then called Dahomey) and Togo. I saw enough and knew enough about the area to relate to much in Winter's book. I have great admiration for what she has accomplished with Night Must Wait.
I lived in Mali at the time and could not visit Nigeria because of the war, but did travel through Niger, Benin (then called Dahomey) and Togo. I saw enough and knew enough about the area to relate to much in Winter's book. I have great admiration for what she has accomplished with Night Must Wait.
March 26, 2014
Really enjoyed reading this book for several reasons. Learned a bit more about the unsuccessful fight for independence of Biafra from Nigeria. Where as I have read a few books about the US interference in foreign countries and their change of government, I was a bit taken aback at first to find the influence, the behind the scenes actions were done by women here. Refreshing and disturbing at the same time. Interesting.
November 18, 2012
This was an excellent read and turned out to be quite different then what I expected when I started it. It got a bit weak toward the end. I picked this up for free for Kindle and it was an awesome experience.
January 18, 2013
I really enjoyed this book. Four American women move to Nigeria in the 60s for adventure and find it along with the civil war. Interesting story, complex characters and suspense.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews