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    The Gloaming
    The Gloaming
    The Gloaming
    Audiobook9 hours

    The Gloaming

    Written by Melanie Finn

    Narrated by Nicol Zanzarella

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Pilgrim's husband left her for another woman, stranding her in a Swiss town where she is involved in an accident that leaves three children dead. Cleared of responsibility though overcome with guilt, she absconds to Africa, befriending a series of locals, each with their own tragic past.

    Mysteriously, the remains of an albino appear, spooking everyone-sign of a curse placed by a witch doctor-though its intended recipient is uncertain. Pilgrim volunteers to rid the town of the box and its contents, though wherever she goes, she can't shake the feeling that she's being followed.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMay 16, 2017
    ISBN9781541473034
    The Gloaming
    Author

    Melanie Finn

    Melanie Finn was born and raised in Kenya, before moving to Connecticut. She has worked as a freelance journalist for many years, and lives with her family in Vermont. She is the author of two previous novels, Away from You and The Gloaming.

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    Reviews for The Gloaming

    4/5

    36 ratings4 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Just meh to me. The book contains a few different characters but the main one is Pilgrim. After her marriage is broken up, followed by a terrible car accident where Pilgrim ran into three children with her car and killed them, Pilgrim tries to escape life by moving to Africa.
    • 3/5
      I was loving Finn's prose for about the first 100 pages, then got bored with it. About the first 200 pages (out of 300) focused on Pilgrim Jones, whose international lawyer leaves her because he gets some woman pregnant, and Pilgrim kills three kids with her car in Switzerland when swerving to avoid hitting a dog. Pilgrim then flees to Africa. The rest of the chapters are from points of views (POV's) of different characters. I thought at least 50 pages of Pilgrim's POV could have been edited out, maybe even 100 pages. Bright spots of this "literary thriller" include the well-fleshed-out character of Gloria, who runs an AIDS orphanage; and a line about mercenary Martin Martins: violence is tied up in his identity — that truism will stay with me for a long time.
    • 4/5
      Pilgrim Jones, finds herself abandoned in a Swiss town, her supposedly loving husband having left her for another woman, a woman already expecting their first child. Heartbroken and unmoored, she is involved in an accident that kills three young children. Although cleared of responsibility for the accident, Pilgrim cannot forgive herself and makes her way to Tanzania, trying to escape her past. There she will meet people also running from their pasts in various says. She will, also be followed by one who means her harm and one who loves her, or believes he does.The atmosphere of this novel is haunting as are the characters she encounters. Each will play a significant part in the ensuing drama that unfolds. Beautifully written ,the first half narrated by Pilgrim herself, the second part, after a near tragedy will have Pilgrim disappearing from the story which is than taken up by the five people she encounters. A modern day Canterbury tale perhaps but without the humor. I was surprised by how taken I was with this very different story, don't think I have ever read anything quite like it before. The prose is beautiful in places, exceptional actually, but the overall tome is dark in contrast. Pilgrim as her name implies is a searcher, a search for the way to come to terms with her past, her guilt and a search for a new place to belong. The ending a total revelation but so extremely fitting.
    • 4/5
      The title of Melanie Finn’s novel—THE GLOAMING—evokes a mood of impending darkness filled with beautiful light. “The late evening light, soft and translucent, has made the world benign.” The book delivers on this promise in a tale filled with tragedy, but offering paths to redemption. The protagonist’s name—Pilgrim—also is evocative because she is on a pilgrimage of sorts from betrayal, death and ostracism to self-realization. In a way, THE GLOAMING reminds one of Bunyan’s allegory (“Pilgrim’s Progress”), which told of a man’s journey from a deeply flawed world to one that was more benign and fulfilling. Not unlike, Christian in “Pilgrim’s Progress,” our Pilgrim encounters multiple fellow travelers on her journey with their own tragic stories. Finn explores themes of guilt and the search for salvation with her intricate plot. Pilgrim is betrayed by her husband, who leaves her for another woman. While grieving the loss of her marriage, she has an unfortunate automobile accident resulting in the death of three children. Because the locals in her close-knit Swiss community see her as a kindermörderin (“child murderer”), Pilgrim flees to Africa with vague ideas of hiding or possibly starting anew. Finn relates this portion of her story using a first person narrative, but she abruptly switches to third person in the latter half of the novel. At first this is disorienting but quickly works to ramp up tension and suspense because she introduces a cast of characters who interact with Pilgrim in ways that reveal them as fellow travellers in the search for redemption from various tragic events in their own lives. Having lived in Africa, Finn adeptly demonstrates considerable insight into its geography and culture, especially the expats living there. Pilgrim settles in the remote Tanzanian village of Mugulu. There she meets several tragic figures. Dorothea is the local medic whose children were abducted by her estranged husband; Kessy is a policeman without any resources to do his job; Gloria is an American who is attempting to come to terms with her son’s untimely death by establishing an orphanage for children with AIDS; Martin Martins is a sociopathic Ukrainian soldier of fortune looking for his next score; and Harry is a drunken bush pilot who is trying to forget an unfortunate flying accident where he caused the death of several children. Two Swiss nationals with their own tragic stories also appear: Detective Inspector Paul Strebel, burned out from his job and failing marriage, is taken with Pilgrim and journeys to Africa out of concern for her welfare; and Ernst Koppler, the father of one of the children killed in Pilgrim’s accident, believes he has nothing to live for after also losing his wife to cancer. Finn’s use of ghosts appearing at odd times in the story and a strange curse involving a butchered albino child as plot devices to increase suspense, mystery and tension in the narrative are not well developed and minimally effective. Those minor failings notwithstanding, the narrative is endowed with enough shadowy and threatening content to satisfy any reader looking for a dark literary thriller. The plotting is well paced, clever and intricate. The ending is totally satisfying because it neatly ties up the various plot lines while offering few pat answers.