An overpromised land: Farewell to Eden, by Sebastian Faulks, reviewed
From our UK edition
Farewell to Eden, Sebastian Faulks’s 18th novel, is a timely masterpiece; a riveting story of war and lost love across two scarred terrains: postwar Britain and Palestine in 1946. It’s a profound meditation on morality, faith and music. And a murder mystery to boot. It’s 1951 and we meet the solitary Philip Deval, an ex-army man with a degree in philosophy. London’s ‘shrapnel scars’ and paucity of work push him to take a job at a school called Witchelm. On his first night, smoking in bed, he murmurs a peculiar thought aloud: ‘Christ, how long can I get away with this?’ Clues snake through the novel to reveal an ingenious denouement. Faulks flashes back to Palestine in 1946.
