QUARANTINE.

by Nicholas Hasluck

COLLECTIBLE - NEAR FINE Hardcover Text/BRAND NEW w/small closed tear to lower edge of rear endpaper.. Bi-color boards w/silver lettering/Fine. DJ/NF w/light wear & discoloration to spine. Trace soiling to upper text edge. A moral thriller set in Egypt circa 1937 in which an un-named, Australian narrator reveals a youthful experience. Then enroute to England to study law, the narrator finds himself sailing the Suez Canal. The battered old ship is inexplicably detained, and all passengers are quarantined in an isolated, decrepit hotel. Then begins a "faszad", an Egyptian word connoting "dirty business" covering the trivial to the disastrous. This faszad proves deadly. An eye-witness account by the narrator, imprisoned in a web of his own passivity and jealously, is unable to prevent the ensuing violence. First novel from the Honourable Justice Nicholas Paul Hasluck (1942 - ), Australian novelist, poet and short story writer, and judge.

Genres: Fiction

194 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

Reviews

[Kathleen Henry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Obviously a timely read during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some very funny snippets, and the author evokes the ennui of rural Egypt quite well. But the narrator is so annoyingly naive, awkward and self-absorbed that the experience of the novel is diminished.