560. Red Island House

Rating:  ☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Andrea Lee

Genre:   Fiction, Foreign, Race

288 pages, published March 23, 2021

Reading Format:  Audiobook on Overdrive

Summary

Red Island House tells the story of Shay, an African American Literature Professor from Berkley, and her older, Italian husband Senna.  Senna builds Shay an idyllic beach house on the island of Madagascar.  Over several decades, we witness the rise and fall of Shay and Senna as they start and raise a family and then inevitably drift apart.

Quotes 

“Outsiders always want something from Madagascar. The emotion is always the same, whatever the thing desired: whether to establish the country as a locus for fabulous legends … as a source for gemstones, rare butterflies, rosewood, spices, slaves; or as fertile ground to produce sugar … or even – as Hitler once planned – as a convenient penal colony for the exiled Jews of Europe.”

 

My Take

While the book has a few interesting insights, I did not love Red Island House.  I never became invested in any of the characters and the plot was boring.