The Turning over

The Turning Over is a cautionary tale of good intentions gone awry in a disintegrating world. William McCauley takes the tragedy of postcolonial Africa as the theme of this first novel, set in the Sierra Leone of the mid-1980s. Robert Kelley, an expatriate American, has lived for several years in a small rural village where he has established a successful fisheries program. Life has been good to him--he has his African live-in lover in the village and an American USAID girlfriend, Marie, in nearby Mali. But all good things must come to an end, especially in Africa. Kelley is offered a new project in an unstable region of the country, and against his better judgment, he delays joining Marie in order to accept. It isn't long before he is embroiled in a tragic and bloody political struggle. McCauley writes with authority, not only about the political situation in Sierra Leone but also about the details of expatriate life in the developing world. From Fourth of July parties at the American embassy to the almost claustrophobic nature of the expat community and their potentially dangerous sense of entitlement and immunity, he gets things right. --Margaret Prior