Greenland by David Sanchos Donaldson

Monday, Jan. 9, 2023--San Antonio

Greenland by David Sanchos Donaldson is a bit confusing at times, because he uses magical realism to make connections between what is happening in the protagonist's personal life and the lives of the charactors in the two novels that he is writing about the relationship between E. M. Forster, a British author, and Mohammad el Adl, a tram conductor, that developed when Forster was in Egypt.  One of the novels tells the story with Forster as the central character, and the other tells it with Mohammad as the central character.  The protagonist for this book is a writer who feels his chance to be published is passing away.  At the same time, he is having problems in his relationship with his life partner which make it seem that the relationship is coming to a rough end like the one between the main characters of his two novels.  Plus, he has alienated his best friend who hasn't spoken to him in several months.  It has become two novels because the only person who showed interest in the original novel written from Forster's perspective said she couldn't publish it in that form.  She said that re-writing it from the perspective of Mohammad would make it more interesting to the potential audience of readers.  But there was a catch; she would be retiring soon, and he had to get the second version of the novel written from Mohammed's perspective in 3 weeks to be able to get it accepted for publication.  He locks himself in the basement with limited food resources so he can work without interruptions and seems to eventually have some hallucinations.  Then he heads out of the country to find a wilderness he feels he must experience to understand Mohammed's life situation.  Topics of colonialism, racism, spirituality, etc., are brought up repeatedly.  I often set the book down for a day or two at a time, but I found it to be interesting.  I gave it 4 stars out of 5.