The Darling

A New York Times Notable Book • National Bestseller

“Russell Banks’s work presents without falsehood and with tough affection the uncompromising moral voice of our time. You find the craziness of false dreams, the political inequalities, and somehow the sliver of redemption.”—Michael Ondaatje

Set in Liberia and the United States from 1975 through 1991, The Darling, from acclaimed author Russell Banks, is the story of Hannah Musgrave, a political radical and member of the Weather Underground.

Hannah flees America for West Africa, where she and her Liberian husband become friends of the notorious warlord and ex-president, Charles Taylor. Hannah's encounter with Taylor ultimately triggers a series of events whose momentum catches Hannah's family in its grip and forces her to make a heartrending choice.

Russell Banks has exhibited an astonishingly imaginative range throughout his distinguished career as a novelist, and his uniquely realistic American voice, on display in such modern classics as Rule of the Bone and Continental Drift, continues to shine in this latest effort. Fans and newcomers alike will be rewarded by his incisive eye for character and his ability to deliver a relentless and engaging narrative -- always in the service of his inimitable style.

The Darling is Hannah Musgrave's story, told emotionally and convincingly years later by Hannah herself. A political radical and member of the Weather Underground, Hannah has fled America to West Africa, where she and her Liberian husband become friends and colleagues of Charles Taylor, the notorious warlord and now ex-president of Liberia. When Taylor leaves for the United States in an effort to escape embezzlement charges, he's immediately placed in prison. Hannah's encounter with Taylor in America ultimately triggers a series of events whose momentum catches Hannah's family in its grip and forces her to make a heartrending choice.

Set in Liberia and the United States from 1975 through 1991, The Darling is a political-historical thriller -- reminiscent of Greene and Conrad -- that explodes the genre, raising serious philosophical questions about terrorism, political violence, and the clash of races and cultures.

"Russell Banks’s work presents without falsehood and with tough affection the uncompromising moral voice of our time. You find the craziness of false dreams, the political inequalities, and somehow the sliver of redemption. I trust his portraits of America more than any other—the burden of it, the need for it, the hell of it.” - Michael Ondaatje

“Of the many writers working in the great tradition today, one of the best is Russell Banks.” - New York Times Book Review

“Russell Banks’s twentieth-century Liberia is as hellish a place as Joseph Conrad’s nineteenth-century Congo. The only creatures that behave with humanity are the apes. A dark and disturbing book.” - J. M. Coetzee

“A former American radical returns to war-torn Liberia to look for the sons she left behind ten years earlier. In this disquieting book—something of a thematic sequel to Cloudsplitter, his 1988 novel about avenging abolitionist John Brown—Banks takes on Charles Taylor, Western idealism, and the moral consequences of looking the other way.” - Details

“Powerful and evocative.” - Newsweek

“Banks creates a heroine every bit as complex and flawed as someone out of Jane Austen.” - Hartford Courant

“In The Darling, he is working at full strength, and his readers are in his debt.” - Washington Post Book World

“Once again, he has produced a novel that is searing, demanding and unforgettable.” - Newsweek

“Banks has written a novel that is utterly accessible, forcefully wrought and undeniably passionate.” - Lisa Ko, author of The Leavers

“Banks’ mastery of his material makes this a compelling and important book.” - Orlando Sentinel

“Admirable, compelling, always surprising and never clichéd.” - New York Times Book Review

“The real achievement here is the creation of Hannah; she’s one of the few recent literary characters I expect I’ll remember, and the book itself is the most engaging one I’ve read all year.” - Charlotte Observer

“Extraordinary...Hannah offers a first person narrative so moving, so pitiless, so rare in contemporary fiction that it embodies Aristotelian catharsis... Banks is that rare epic novelist.” - Baltimore Sun

“Hannah’s story shows why Banks ranks among our boldest artists.” - Boston Globe

“Banks’s novel is a vivid account of a time of terror, exposing the secrets of the soul.” - O magazine

“Banks is such a master story teller, and has thought so deeply about the issues of race and power at hand, that there is much to savor here.” - The Nation

“Extraordinary. . . Banks is the rare epic novelist.” - Virginian Pilot