An Island Death

by Sol Yurick

Targ, professor of classics and antiquities ("What's antiquity? A conventionalized sequence fixed by an investment of passionate belief."), has fought his way up from working class to the heights of academia. He has conformed to all the expected norms, shedding his "savagery like snake skins," changing his name, accepting and preaching the dogma his socio-cultural-political world requires of its interpreters of reality.

Now he is troubled; he rages in an anxious panic; all seems meaningless. His passionate study of the past, his belief in the myths of the great western civilization - are they all lies, delusions - or propaganda? His sacrifices of self and others - have there been cruelties committed in the name of deceit? Deceit demanded by what? Or whom?

What is the truth? A new kind of reality, shadowy if not totally invisible, has arisen. It is a consuming beast of multi-nationals, of banks and bureaucrats, diplomats, dictators, and prime ministers, universities and secret intelligence gatherers, agribusiness and armies. Is Targ an agent for this unseen but all-powerful nexus of energy and control?

Targ travels to the Mediterranean for solace. But this time his return to the "cradle of civilization" is different. He gets involved in a bizarre and affecting encounter with a man named Kairos. Resurrecting his humanity, Targ makes a gesture of individual responsibility in defiance of the world that created him. But there is a price he must pay...

Strange, powerful and deeply disturbing, An Island Death marks an impressive return by Sol Yurick to the novel form.

Genres: Novels

183 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

Sol Yurick was an American novelist. He was born to a working class family of politically active Jewish immigrants. At the age of 14, Yurick became disillusioned with politics after the Hitler-Stalin pact. He enlisted during World War II, where he trained as a surgical technician. He studied at New York University after the war, majoring in literature. After graduation, he took a job with the welfare department as a social investigator, a job he held until the early 1960s, when he took up writing full time. He was involved in Students for a Democratic Society and the anti-war movement at this time.

His first novel, The Warriors, appeared in 1965. It combined a classical Greek story, Anabasis (Xenophon), with a fictional account of gang wars in New York City. It inspired the 1979 film of the same name. His other works include: Fertig (1966), The Bag (1968), Someone Just Like You/i> (1972), An Island Death (1976), Richard A (1981), Behold Metatron, the Recording Angel (1985), and Confession (1999).

Yurick passed away of complications from lung cancer, at age 87.

Reviews

[Demetrios Dolios · Rating 4 out of 5]

amazingly rich prose..complicated, but the resolution in the end resolves the conflict..worth it