The Hamilton Case
Michelle de Kretser
May 2011 · RH AudioGo · Narrated by Sam Dastor
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Audiobook
9 hr 57 min
Unabridged
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Eligible
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About this audiobook
The place is Ceylon, the time the 1930s. Set amid tea plantations, decay and corruption, this sinuous, subtle, surprising novel is a masterly evocation of time and place, of colonialism and the backwash of empire. It is the story of an embittered Ceylonese lawyer, Sam Obeysekere himself a product of empire - 'obey' by name and by nature - and of a family that once had wealth and influence but starts to crack open when Sam's charismatic father dies leaving gambling debts, an ex-beauty of a wife, an unstable daughter and an inadequate son. But the writing has been on the wall for a generation, ever since another sibling died in his cot- And at the heart of the novel is the Hamilton Case, a 'White Mischief' murder scandal that shakes the upper echelons of the island's society. Sam's involvement in it makes his name but paradoxically ensures that he will never achieve his ambition. A miracle of delicacy and restraint, full of volte faces, and narrated with perfect pitch in a voice that catches both the tragedy and comedy of their situation, this is a gripping, nuanced tale of the end of an era, suffused with 'the unbearable thought that everything might have turned out differently'.
About the author
Born in Colombo to a Sri-Lankan 'Burgher' family which emigrated to Australia when she was fourteen, Michelle de Kretser, taught in Montpellier, took an MA at the Sorbonne, and worked for several years as an editor at Lonely Planet. She now lives in Melbourne.
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