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Liked It “A stunning debut novel by a psychiatric nurse in which illness unleashes the uncanny and essential of human identity, featuring an American missionary's daughter who grows into womanhood amid the social and political conflict of 1980s southern Africa |
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“This was an interesting book about both mental illness and Africa through the eyes of an "outsider." The story was interesting, but I wasn't really into the style of writing. Personally, I'd be really interested in reading a first-hand memoir by the authoress.”
MamaEdmund wrote this review Friday, September 5 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No“A stunning debut novel by a psychiatric nurse in which illness unleashes the uncanny and essential of human identity, featuring an American missionary's daughter who grows into womanhood amid the social and political conflict of 1980s southern Africa
LiteraryVenturesFund wrote this review Saturday, May 10 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
The setting of this extraordinary novel is Rhodesia in the throes of the conflict that will give birth to Zimbabwe, a transition that Nangle witnessed when she lived there. Colleen, motherless from the age of seven, is left alone with her father, an American ex pat coffee farmer, and her younger sister, whose mental illness removes her from the family. The Leper Compound is the record of Colleen's passage into adulthood across an Africa in transformation. Extending beyond the usual parameters of a "coming of age" story, it is, simultaneously, about the forging of personal and national identity.
Paula Nangle was raised by missionaries in the US and southern Africa and now lives in Benton Harbor, Michigan, where she works as a psychiatric nurse. This is her first novel.”
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