Silent Night

A Novel

By: Mark Jacobs

Write A Review

Paperback | 23 July 2024

At a Glance

Paperback
406 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
20.3 x 13.9 x 2.7

Paperback

$45.25

or 4 interest-free payments of $11.31 with

Aims to ship in 15 to 25 business days

At the start of Mark Jacob's remarkable new novel—his first book in thirteen years—thirty-seven-year-old Smith wins a "stash" of diamonds in a poker game. The only catch: he has to find them.

A Louisiana native, Smith is currently employed on an oil platform off the west coast of Africa, while the diamonds are somewhere in the immense, war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo. But Smith's grown tired of the platform and he hates the idea of wasting a full house. One last adventure, he tells himself, and then, diamonds or no diamonds, he's heading home to Louisiana.

In Kinshasa, Smith meets a young woman named Beatrice, who hails from a village on the other side of the country. But this village, she tells Smith, is where his diamonds are—a thousand miles away as the crow flies, but significantly longer on the patchwork of guerilla-patrolled roads that traverse the country. If he helps her get home, she'll show him where the stones are.

What ensues is a guided tour of hell in which a not-so-innocent American abroad comes face to face with the legacy of European imperialism in the heart of the African continent. Like Joseph Conrad, Graham Greene, and V.S. Naipaul before him, Jacobs reveals the limits of the western gaze, inverting the tropes of the white-savior novel to give us a story about a man who realizes you don't have to travel to another country to get lost, and you don't have to go home to be found.

Industry Reviews

"If John le Carre were an American, his name would be Mark Jacobs."
-Kinky Friedman

Praise for A Handful of Kings:

"No writer is as brilliant as Mark Jacobs at exploring the rich fictional realm of the American abroad. He blends the literary traditions of Henry James and Graham Greene in work that is truly his own and truly wonderful. A Handful of Kings is his best book yet."
-Robert Olen Butler

"With [A Handful of Kings], Mark Jacobs has written . . . a novel rich with feeling for the mysterious world his characters inhabit, and he has put them, and us, through hell in a very small space. The novel is thrilling not for its action or some vestigial obedience to its supposed genre, but for its moments of human recognition and harrowing yet still human surprise."
-Tom Bissell

Shipping

	Standard Shipping	Express Shipping
Metro postcodes:	$9.99	$14.95
Regional postcodes:	$9.99	$14.95
Rural postcodes:	$9.99	$14.95

How to return your order

At Booktopia, we offer hassle-free returns in accordance with our returns policy. If you wish to return an item, please get in touch with Booktopia Customer Care.

Additional postage charges may be applicable.