In the shadows of the Cango Caves in rural South Africa lives Connie Lambrecht, dazed by alcohol and devastating memories. A "poor white," she is haunted by the disappearance of a young "colored" girl in a passage called the Devil's Chimney and obsessed with the story of an Englishwoman who arrived with her husband in 1910 to run an ostrich farm during the international craze for ostrich plumes. The story of Miss Beatrice--a lushly told tale of passion and transgression, violence and tragedy, retribution and redemption--entwines in surprising ways with Connie's own dark secrets. Set against a harsh, dazzling landscape and a social system in which the lives of women and black people are equally expendable--and compared by reviewers to the works of Alice Munro, J. M. Coetzee, and Flannery O'Connor--The Devil's Chimney is an artful, lyrical, and explosive debut.

The Devil's Chimney

Literature & Fiction

Landsman, Anne

Contemporary

Penguin??Books

The Rowing Lesson

Kwela Books

In Oudtshoorn, South Africa, Connie Lambrecht lives in the shadow of the vast Cango Caves. In the depths of one of the eerie passages they call the Devil's Chimney, a young colored servant girl once vanished. Connie is haunted by this mystery, and by the story of an upper-class Englishwoman, Miss Beatrice, whose quixotic attempt to raise ostriches at the turn of the century on a farm near this dusty provicial town led to terrible misfortune. In recounting the tales of these two women, Connie finally discovers the deepest secret of her own life and the truth about her ghost-filled past.

The Devil's Chimney: A Novel

United States

Soho Pr Inc

Winner of the South African M-Net Literary Prize (English category). “Anne Landsman’s glittering, shimmering new novel is a tour de force. . . . Elation and pain, anxiety and exuberance, and the uneven beat of living are all caught in language as silky and fluid as music.”—Roxana Robinson “Like Joyce or William Gass or John Edgar Wideman, Anne Landsman fashions a sensual web of memory and desire, rescuing a world at the brink of extinction through the power of her lyricism.”—Stewart O’Nan “An elegy for a lost father and a beloved world on the point of disappearing. Rarely in South African writing will we encounter language of such fire and passion.”—J. M. Coetzee “A fierce elegy, a daughter’s imaginary inhabitation of the memory of her dying father . . . an adventure in language. . . . It makes art of a life.”—Louis Menand Betsy Klein is summoned from her home in the United States to her father’s hospital bed in South Africa. Orphaned young, he had to struggle to become a doctor and to win the respect of his Boer patients. We first meet young Harold Klein on an excursion with his friends on the Ebb ’N Flow, a river to which he often returns. That is where he later teaches his little daughter to row, and finally, where he makes his last metaphoric passage. Anne Landsman was born and raised in South Africa. Her debut novel, The Devil’s Chimney (Soho Press, 1997), was published in paperback by Penguin. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and two children.

The Rowing Lesson: A Novel

Soho Press

Winner of the South African M-Net Literary Prize (English category). “Rarely in South African writing will we encounter language of such fire and passion.”âJ.M. Coetzee “The beauty of The Rowing Lesson is in its fluid metaphors, its urgent storytelling . . . and the lyric desperation of a daughter’s love.”âO Magazine “Beautiful. . . . Unfailingly original.”âJennifer Egan “Visceral. . . . Intensely exhilarating.”âThe New York Times Book Review “Like Joyce or William Gass or John Edgar Wideman, Anne Landsman fashions a sensual web of memory and desire, rescuing a world on the brink of extinction through the power of her lyricism.”âStewart O’Nan “Amazing.”âLos Angeles Times “A tour de force.”âRoxana Robinson “An adventure in language. . . . It makes art of life.”âLouis Menand Betsy Klein is summoned from her home in the United States to the bedside of her dying father in a South African hospital. Faced with having to say goodbye, she delves into his mind, speaking to him in the lyrical second-person. She imaginatively recreates his lifeâhis struggles to become a doctor after being orphaned young and his fight to win the respect of his Boer patients as a Jewâas well as her own experiences with him as a father. Anne Landsman was born and raised in South Africa and received degrees from the University of Cape Town and Columbia University. Her debut novel, The Devil’s Chimney, also set in South Africa, was a Book of the Month Club Quality Paperback Selection and was nominated for a PEN/Hemingway Award. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and two children.

Pregnant with her first child, Betsy Klein is summoned from her home in the US to her father's hospital bed in South Africa. Harold Klein is sensual, irascible, a passionately committed doctor, and a complex husband and father. As Betsy sits and waits for him to stir from his coma, she is compelled to imagine his life.

Granta Books

Devils Chimney

Literary

London: Granta Books

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Books by Landsman, Anne

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Landsman, Anne. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Devil's Chimney

The Rowing Lesson

The Devil's Chimney: A Novel

The Rowing Lesson: A Novel

The Rowing Lesson

The Rowing Lesson

Devils Chimney