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Blindsided
Beautiful landscapes, fascinating history and a unique blend of cultures. For Ralph and Clare, a working holiday also offers an opportunity to get their marriage back on track.
Then a chance meeting with Tex and Cass provides new companions on their tour of the island.
But how easy is it to tell welcome short-cuts from dangerous diversions, misunderstandings from deceptions and bad luck from betrayal?
And finally, when everyday existence turns on life-or-death decisions, what does it take to become the hero of your own story?
Then a chance meeting with Tex and Cass provides new companions on their tour of the island.
But how easy is it to tell welcome short-cuts from dangerous diversions, misunderstandings from deceptions and bad luck from betrayal?
And finally, when everyday existence turns on life-or-death decisions, what does it take to become the hero of your own story?
298 pages, Paperback
Published April 11, 2020
1 person is currently reading
3 people want to read
About the author
Julian Edge
25 books6 followersI have been involved in teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) since 1969, with an increasing engagement in teacher education in that field. I am fascinated by the interaction between personal development and professional development, and by how individual development is best achieved in social interaction. That is very much the focus of my 2002 book, Continuing Cooperative Development. Mind you, I also love a good story, and I find that my writing has moved more and more away from academic prose towards the sharing of experience and the shared attempt to make sense of it. In my 2011 book, The Reflexive Teacher Educator, I use re-interpretations of the myths of Icarus and Narcissus, as well as snippets from my own mental cowboy movie, to sketch a picture of TESOL teacher education as I have shaped my version of it, and it has shaped my working life. If you find that any of this resonates with you, you can contact me at julian.edge@manchester.ac.uk
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 2, 2020
Ralph and Clare arrive in Sardinia late in the day to begin a holiday and, maybe, make some progress on personal and professional projects. There’s confusion at the car rental counter, and after a bit of back and forth with the clerk and the couple behind them in line, they end up taking the last available vehicle – the four of them together – with a plan to sort it all out in the morning. However, the next day, having established a tentative friendship with the other couple – in the manner of improvised camaraderie when one is abroad – the four set off together to share a road trip and bit of an unexpected adventure. However, all is not as it seems, and after a series of increasingly strange events and even stranger revelations, Ralph finds himself caught in the crossfire between cops and terrorists. The novel is propulsive, a confident and creative tale with a dark, brooding undertone. The plot is compelling, in spite of (or, more likely, because of) the fact that this is just the sort of thing that might happen to anyone as the result of an honest gesture of good will and flexibility – the generous impulse of the moment gone horribly wrong. The characters are engaging, and the exchanges among the four very different people crackle with wit and concealed meaning. The story plunges precipitously toward the final scenes and the central mystery is not resolved until the last page.
This is Julian Edge’s second novel after a long and distinguished career as an academic that produced scores of books and learned articles and countless presentations around the world. Trained as a linguist and language teacher, he became well-known as a teacher educator and educational activist. After retiring from university he extended his career by acquiring a counseling credential and establishing a practice that focused on helping people adjust to life after work. A constant theme across the years and venues was the importance of the individual stepping back and stepping up – assessing the situation, including a gimlet-eyed appraisal of oneself and a dispassionate view of the context, followed by principled action, in what might be characterized as the politics of everyday experience.
He carries this attitude into his fiction writing. In the first novel, Satisfaction in Times of Anger, two veteran police officers devise a scheme for overcoming the injustices in society. Hard working and well-intentioned, they realize they are skating on thin ice and when things go awry, they are consumed by guilt even as they are energized to resolve matters. Through the personal stories of individuals, Edge raises important questions about why serious social and political problems remain unresolved in a rich, twenty-first century country such as Britain. The book also addresses broader human issues of justice, revenge and forgiveness. It expresses the desire that a young generation can reach across the divisions established by their elders and may yet offer some hope for a better future. This is not just another police procedural, nor a simplistic confrontation between one community and another. Everyone is looking for their own kind of satisfaction. No one is entirely innocent and everyone makes mistakes. Ultimately, in a world obsessed by questions of identity, the story argues that identity is something an individual constructs, not a category foisted upon one by those set above them.
Edge has always been particularly eloquent on the responsibilities of power and the importance of giving voice to the powerless. It is not surprising, therefore, that his novels hew close to the genre of non-fiction narratives and literary fiction. The fact that he is currently working on a romance novel will no doubt further confuse readers who prefer neat categories.
In Blindsided the author has done his homework. Sardinia and its ancient civilization of the Nuragi emerge as central characters in the novel. And the tortured history of the Mediterranean, with colonial atrocities and bloody resistance, provides background and motive for what might otherwise seem like gratuitous violence. Like an anthropologist engaged in fieldwork, Edge moves his protagonists from site to site to convey a textured understanding of place and the complexities of history that constitute the background and context of the narrative. The wild beauty of Sardinia, and the brooding monuments of the Nuragi lend atmospheric tensions to the action.
Edge is particularly good at integrating arcane material into a dramatic narrative. Readers of Blindsided will find themselves both entertained and painlessly educated. The plot is tightly woven and the action never lags, so one does not have to worry about the professor breaking through to deliver a lecture. At one point the four protagonists engage in a lengthy discussion of competition. Tex, the archetypical American braggart, favors winning at all costs, to no one’s surprise. Clare develops an icy self-appraisal that includes knowing when one should leave the game. Ralph delivers a nuanced analysis of the virtues of the draw. And Cass, the diminutive and tightly wound gamine of uncertain heritage, proves she’s above the game by declaring that she decides for herself whether to win or lose. As obliquely entertaining as this scene is, it is not a pointless foray into psychological gamesmanship, as the novel’s denouement reveals.
The four principals are equally intriguing and each has his or her time in the spotlight, but it is the narrator Ralph who commands our attention as he struggles to negotiate both his understanding of his relationship to the others and his grasp of the increasingly complex and potentially dangerous events that seem to be unfolding willy-nilly in front of him. He stumbles along, giving everyone the benefit of the doubt except himself, as one surprise follows another, and the reader struggles to keep up. At the end of the book, one can be forgiven for staring silently out the window before re-entering reality.
Blindsided is a novel about the complex process of coming to judgment, bringing order and partial clarity to the daily confusions of life, love, and commitment. In confronting his own failings, Ralph is also forced to assess life’s commitments. In dealing with love and betrayal he must take a hard look at the forces that have shaped his life — not just his professional commitments but commitments to family and, ultimately, his own sense of self. Edge is more than a gifted writer. He is a first-rate storyteller for whom the world of cultural diversity and human frailty — a world in which the justice is rare and only then rough and approximate — becomes the vehicle for intense investigations into the varieties of human frailty.
This is Julian Edge’s second novel after a long and distinguished career as an academic that produced scores of books and learned articles and countless presentations around the world. Trained as a linguist and language teacher, he became well-known as a teacher educator and educational activist. After retiring from university he extended his career by acquiring a counseling credential and establishing a practice that focused on helping people adjust to life after work. A constant theme across the years and venues was the importance of the individual stepping back and stepping up – assessing the situation, including a gimlet-eyed appraisal of oneself and a dispassionate view of the context, followed by principled action, in what might be characterized as the politics of everyday experience.
He carries this attitude into his fiction writing. In the first novel, Satisfaction in Times of Anger, two veteran police officers devise a scheme for overcoming the injustices in society. Hard working and well-intentioned, they realize they are skating on thin ice and when things go awry, they are consumed by guilt even as they are energized to resolve matters. Through the personal stories of individuals, Edge raises important questions about why serious social and political problems remain unresolved in a rich, twenty-first century country such as Britain. The book also addresses broader human issues of justice, revenge and forgiveness. It expresses the desire that a young generation can reach across the divisions established by their elders and may yet offer some hope for a better future. This is not just another police procedural, nor a simplistic confrontation between one community and another. Everyone is looking for their own kind of satisfaction. No one is entirely innocent and everyone makes mistakes. Ultimately, in a world obsessed by questions of identity, the story argues that identity is something an individual constructs, not a category foisted upon one by those set above them.
Edge has always been particularly eloquent on the responsibilities of power and the importance of giving voice to the powerless. It is not surprising, therefore, that his novels hew close to the genre of non-fiction narratives and literary fiction. The fact that he is currently working on a romance novel will no doubt further confuse readers who prefer neat categories.
In Blindsided the author has done his homework. Sardinia and its ancient civilization of the Nuragi emerge as central characters in the novel. And the tortured history of the Mediterranean, with colonial atrocities and bloody resistance, provides background and motive for what might otherwise seem like gratuitous violence. Like an anthropologist engaged in fieldwork, Edge moves his protagonists from site to site to convey a textured understanding of place and the complexities of history that constitute the background and context of the narrative. The wild beauty of Sardinia, and the brooding monuments of the Nuragi lend atmospheric tensions to the action.
Edge is particularly good at integrating arcane material into a dramatic narrative. Readers of Blindsided will find themselves both entertained and painlessly educated. The plot is tightly woven and the action never lags, so one does not have to worry about the professor breaking through to deliver a lecture. At one point the four protagonists engage in a lengthy discussion of competition. Tex, the archetypical American braggart, favors winning at all costs, to no one’s surprise. Clare develops an icy self-appraisal that includes knowing when one should leave the game. Ralph delivers a nuanced analysis of the virtues of the draw. And Cass, the diminutive and tightly wound gamine of uncertain heritage, proves she’s above the game by declaring that she decides for herself whether to win or lose. As obliquely entertaining as this scene is, it is not a pointless foray into psychological gamesmanship, as the novel’s denouement reveals.
The four principals are equally intriguing and each has his or her time in the spotlight, but it is the narrator Ralph who commands our attention as he struggles to negotiate both his understanding of his relationship to the others and his grasp of the increasingly complex and potentially dangerous events that seem to be unfolding willy-nilly in front of him. He stumbles along, giving everyone the benefit of the doubt except himself, as one surprise follows another, and the reader struggles to keep up. At the end of the book, one can be forgiven for staring silently out the window before re-entering reality.
Blindsided is a novel about the complex process of coming to judgment, bringing order and partial clarity to the daily confusions of life, love, and commitment. In confronting his own failings, Ralph is also forced to assess life’s commitments. In dealing with love and betrayal he must take a hard look at the forces that have shaped his life — not just his professional commitments but commitments to family and, ultimately, his own sense of self. Edge is more than a gifted writer. He is a first-rate storyteller for whom the world of cultural diversity and human frailty — a world in which the justice is rare and only then rough and approximate — becomes the vehicle for intense investigations into the varieties of human frailty.
September 8, 2021
A relational suspense thriller for grown ups.
Middle aged academic Ralph is on a trip to Sardinia with his wife Clare in the throes of a failing marriage, which seems doomed from the outset. Ralph, however, is prone to clinging to the last shreds of hope, hope that his marriage can survive, hope that he can revitalise his long stalled career and hope that the intriguing young woman Cass who has crashed into their lives (along with boss Tex) may find him a man of some worth. Whatever Ralph's forlorn hopes, and despite his efforts to analyse and interpret his ever more bewildering situations, the party thrown together by an apparent rental car mix up are headed for seismic events. There is a slow steady build throughout the novel, which revels in the landscape and ancient culture of Sardinia, before we begin to discover the extent to which Ralph has been truly 'blindsided.' Recommend.
Middle aged academic Ralph is on a trip to Sardinia with his wife Clare in the throes of a failing marriage, which seems doomed from the outset. Ralph, however, is prone to clinging to the last shreds of hope, hope that his marriage can survive, hope that he can revitalise his long stalled career and hope that the intriguing young woman Cass who has crashed into their lives (along with boss Tex) may find him a man of some worth. Whatever Ralph's forlorn hopes, and despite his efforts to analyse and interpret his ever more bewildering situations, the party thrown together by an apparent rental car mix up are headed for seismic events. There is a slow steady build throughout the novel, which revels in the landscape and ancient culture of Sardinia, before we begin to discover the extent to which Ralph has been truly 'blindsided.' Recommend.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews