I don’t know why I haven’t heard of Agnes Bushell, an exceptional author who lives in Portland, but when I read Dana Wilde’s Kennebec Journal review of Bushell’s novel Asian Vespers, I quickly got a copy of and found it to be fascinating.
And here is the really good news. I can now look forward to reading all of her other novels!
Asian Vespers is truly an exceptional story, and very pertinent because it focuses on the Kurds in Istanbul. The lead character, Aris Butler, traveled to Turkey from Massachusetts to deliver a half million dollars to someone who is trying to provide relief to the Kurds.
I don’t know how Bushell knew so much about those countries, but she really captures them in great detail. There’s a lot to this novel, and even though it is 362 pages long, I read it in two afternoons and evenings, anxious to see how it all worked out.
I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that our country abandoned the Kurds last month, making this novel very timely. I learned a lot about the Kurds in this novel.
Dana Wilde described the book very well, writing “this is an absorbing, timely, really beautiful novel, with vividly wrought characters placed deftly in their cultural, social and political milieus within a tense story.”
I can’t describe it any better than that.
Dana also noted that Bushell “is one of Maine’s largely unsung master fiction writers.”
Well she’s not unsung with me anymore!
You can obtain this novel by contacting Littoral Books in Portland.