In the Blue Light of African Dreams

by Paul Watkins Narrated by Richard Poe

Overview

Halifax had been in French Africa for five years, doing whatever foolhardy, dangerous thing Serailler ordered him to do. It was some time before he finally snapped, but when he did, he opened the throttle, eased back the stick, and lifted straight and high into a dream.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

An aviator mired in the Foreign Legion stays alive by dreaming the impossible in this exquisitely understated adventure. Having fled his Pennsylvania mining town, Charlie Halifax wins the Croix de Guerre flying in France's Lafayette Escadrille in WW I. After an injury, he tries to desert, is caught and sent to serve 20 years in the Foreign Legion. In Morocco, he flies for the greedy and vainglorious Capt. Serailler, who sells rifles to the Arabs even as he fights them. Halifax, holding on to his sanity with dreams of being the first aviator to fly the Atlantic, wins freedom--and a large sum of money--for himself and his flight mechanic (a former Russian aristocrat) by threatening to reveal Serailler's gun-running to a military investigator. Back in France with the mechanic, Halifax is confronted by the investigator, who tries to blackmail him with the promise of an article about his desertion. The irony is one of many for Halifax, who already lives with the memory of his brother's accidental death and nightmares about burning planes. But his life is also a metaphor for light that blinds, and Watkins ( Calm at Sunset, Calm at Dawn ) portrays it with deft, often lyrical prose, culminating in a beautifully imagined ending. (Sept.)

Library Journal

As in his novels Night Over Day Over Night ( LJ 4/1/88) and Calm at Sunset, Calm at Dawn (LJ 9/1/89), Watkins writes compellingly from experience--in this case, flying a bi-plane over the Sahara. The story itself is based on actual events. In 1926 American pilot Charlie Halifax and his Russian mechanic Ivan, serving in the Foreign Legion in Morocco, dream of their White Whale, the Orteig Prize for the first person to fly nonstop from Paris to New York. But Halifax had deserted from the French air force in the war when shot down and wounded, and he finances his venture with loot from his unscrupulous Legion commandant, Serailler. Can free will master fate this way? This Ahab dreams in blue, but in his daylight transatlantic flight the issues of good and evil finally determine whether or not he succeeds. Recommended.-- Kenneth Mintz, formerly with Bayonne P.L., N.J.

From the Publisher

"Excellent . . . evocative of Hemingway . . . the work of a vivid imagination. Watkins is a writer of formidable gifts."—The Washington Post Book World

"For spectacular descriptions of Morocco's exotic landscape and life, for the romance and thrill of the obsession and competition, for the excitement of flying as few writers have ever managed to describe it, take a look at this book."—Cosmopolitan

"One of the most talented and innovative of a new generatoin of American novlelists . . . remarkable . . . totally arresting . . . an extraordinary imaginative feat."—Kansas City Star

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170906703
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	03/18/2011
Edition description:	Unabridged

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