Country of Memory

by K.C. Frederick

Petir, a bureaucrat whose job is to deny insurance claims, is stalked by an angry claimant who blames him for his lost compensation and Petir becomes caught up in a web of dangerous political... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1579620132
• ISBN13: 9781579620134
• Release Date: November 1998
• Publisher: Permanent Press (NY)
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.8" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

A remarkable read

This is the real thing, an engrossing multi-dimensional book with a mysterious storyline and diverse, too human beings. Frederick uses metaphor to great effect. I predict it will be "discovered" and "rediscovered" for years to come for its insight into the human spirit and the sheer virtuosity of its style.

Country of Memory is the rarest of finds

Here is a brave, compassionate, beautifully rendered American novel that also evokes the enduring quality of a much-cherished work from another continent, another century, only recently returned to light. One thinks of Doetskievski, Kafka, Pessoa. This is the story of an insurance clerk named Petir, who works in the capital city of his country; early in the narrative, a friend describes Petir's face as "like a blackboard from which some terribly urgent message has been erased." The quiet power of the novel derives from the emergence of the urgent message not quite immolated in Petir's memory. Like the Christian disciple, Petir struggles to deny this memory (at once his savior and undoer); unlike his namesake, however, he refuses both denial and martyrdom, and admitting the memory, comes to grips with his own mortality. The course of the narrative -- which is orchestrated masterfully, from several intriguing points of view -- links Petir's personal battle with that of his country, emerging from a repressive regime. Country of Memory is a terrifically enjoyable, lively novel of ideas that informs and lightens the sweet and difficult burden of liberty.