The Boiling Season

An ambitious young man struggles to define himself and his future in a Caribbean nation plunged into violent revolution. Having spent his childhood trapped in the slums of a politically volatile Caribbean island, Alexandre dreams of escape. Within only a few years, he rises from being a valet for an important politician to becoming a caretaker for a derelict estate purchased by a wealthy foreign businesswoman. While the rest of the country copes with the rise of a brutal dictator, Alexandre flees to his new home in the remote mountains outside the capital. There he oversees the restoration of a manor house and gardens that evoke for him an innocent, unspoiled past. When his new employer sees a chance to turn the estate into something more—a decadent, jet-setting resort—Alexandre views the undertaking as the culmination of his dreams. Eager to lose himself in the creation of this opulent Eden, Alexandre severs the last links to his unhappy past, including his family and friends. But as the outside world starts to crumble around him, Alexandre must face the limits of the utopia he has created. Soon he is trapped in the middle of a war he has tried to ignore, and discovers he will have to choose between preserving the estate he loves and protecting the people he has spent his life trying to escape. Review“Hebert conjures a vibrant atmosphere, as rich as a character as any inhabitant, whether in the fetid stink of the slums or the cool, detached opulence of the most affluent homes...” (Booklist )“Allegories about the morality of international development projects are rarely as subtle and lyrical as Christopher Hebert’s debut novel, ‘The Boiling Season.’” (San Francisco Chronicle )“THE BOILING SEASON is a beguiling political novel...Hebert conjures this strife-torn island-at once fictitious, but also hauntingly familiar-with uncanny precision and compelling lucidity.” (Peter Ho Davies, author of THE WELSH GIRL )“’The Boiling Season’ is a subtly crafted novel and an auspicious debut for Hebert.” (Dayton Daily News )“...a tour de force of restrained, unreliable first-person narration, a love letter to a beautiful, forgotten place, and a visceral depiction of Haitian political upheaval...A truly auspicious debut.” (Michael Knight, author of THE TYPIST and THE DIVINING ROD )“Hebert demonstrates an ambition and clarity of vision that is rare in a first novel...A rich, synthesized imagining of the personal history of a country torn asunder.” (Kirkus Reviews )“Hypnotically fascinating...It’s remarkable to see an American novel so profoundly steeped in the tradition of the great Haitian writers of the twentieth century.” (Madison Smartt Bell, author of ALL SOULS' RISING )“THE BOILING SEASON asks all the right questions, and it answers those questions beautifully, with great dramatic force.” (Charles Baxter, author of THE FEAST OF LOVE AND GRYPHON: NEW AND SELECTED STORIES )“...luminous and important...Christopher Hebert is a serious new novelist, one who’s offered us a real gift-a mesmerizing entertainment that uplifts, educates, moves, and changes us.” (Laura Kasischke, author of IN A PERFECT WORLD and THE RAISING )“With an unforced formality of diction...the whole is told with such clear-eyed compassion that the reader comes to honor failure-one mark of this novel’s success.” (Nicholas Delbanco, author of SHERBROOKES ) About the AuthorChristopher Hebert graduated from Antioch College, where he also worked at the Antioch Review. He has spent time in Guatemala, taught in Mexico, and worked as a research assistant to the author Susan Cheever. He earned an MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan and was awarded its prestigious Hopwood Award for Fiction. He lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, with his son and wife, the novelist Margaret Lazarus Dean.