The Gendarme

In this extraordinarily haunting, deeply moving novel, an old man comes face-to-face with the horrors of his past, and sets out to find the love of his life and beg her forgiveness. To those around him, Emmet Conn is a ninety-two-year-old man on the verge of senility. Now, at the end of his life, he suddenly finds himself tormented by dreams of a march across a foreign land, of appalling acts of cruelty, and the anguish of a lost love. But these are no dreams and he is no prisoner. The Gendarme is a unique love story that explores the power of memory, and the ability of people, individually and collectively, to forget. Depicting how love can transcend nationalities and politics, how racism creates divisions where none truly exist, and how the human spirit fights to surviveeven in the face of hopelessness, this is a superbly transcendent novel.