Böcker av Mark Jacobs

At the start of Mark Jacob's remarkable new novel-his first book in thirteen years-thirty-seven-year-old Smith wins a "stash" of diamonds in a poker game. The only catch: he has to find them. A Louisiana native, Smith is currently employed on an oil platform off the west coast of Africa, while the diamonds are somewhere in the immense, war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo. But Smith's grown tired of the platform and he hates the idea of wasting a full house. One last adventure, he tells himself, and then, diamonds or no diamonds, he's heading home to Louisiana. In Kinshasa, Smith meets a young woman named Béatrice, who hails from a village on the other side of the country. But this village, she tells Smith, is where his diamonds are-a thousand miles away as the crow flies, but significantly longer on the patchwork of guerilla-patrolled roads that traverse the country. If he helps her get home, she'll show him where the stones are. What ensues is a guided tour of hell in which a not-so-innocent American abroad comes face to face with the legacy of European imperialism in the heart of the African continent. Like Joseph Conrad, Graham Greene, and V.S. Naipaul before him, Jacobs reveals the limits of the western gaze, inverting the tropes of the white-savior novel to give us a story about a man who realizes you don't have to travel to another country to get lost, and you don't have to go home to be found.

This faith-based story tells of a young man, Matthew Larsen, struggling to understand the purpose and meaning of his life and what faith is all about. He's not even sure he believes in God. He has been dealt some tragic events in the recent past, including helping his ailing father live his final days. Because of those events, he has become cynical toward humanity. He holds down a meaningless job. The only bright spot at work is his coworker and friend, Jennifer, a young woman who longs to be more than just a friend.But it's after his father dies that Matthew meets a mysterious visitor, Anna, who tells him he is needed for an important calling. She calls them missions which are necessary to help others, something only he can do. He begins by helping two individuals, Doc, a guidance counselor who is mourning the loss of his wife and son, and Zach, a nineteen-year-old essentially living on the street and struggling with addictions. The final mission takes Matthew, along with his friends, on a dangerous journey to the deep South to help an unlikely family, strangers to them all.Through these missions and relationships, Matthew begins to learn more about his faith and how we all are connected in this journey called life. It's a story about trusting and having faith in what God has planned for all of us as stated in Jeremiah 29:11. It also illustrates how we need to help and love our fellow human beings, be kind, care for them, and assist them whenever help is needed in this broken world, as told by Jesus Christ in Matthew 25:40. May your faith grow as you read this story and be moved to help others in need as he did.

This is probably the first book ever written by a Guyanese about their own travels in the Caribbean (and the diaspora) - and it is refreshing that Mark Jacobs seeks to put this Guyanese visitor gaze on Haitian life. So often people have come to Guyana and written about their time here, that it is a relief to see this reversed gaze (One day we might get best sellers who return to India and to United Kingdom and USA and write those nice kind of patronising travelogues). The first story is 'black woman and child'. Mark writes about black woman in Haiti and in Guyana beating/threatening to beat a child. In 'madame' about love Guyana style with Haitian overtones. The other vignettes are short incisive reflections, moments in time about the experiences in Haiti. About police who beat people and police who give people a lift on the road ; about magic and about reality. Some of the stories are funny, but the laughter is a kind of alternative reaction to anger . Vidyaratha Kissoon