eden, Jim Crace, Pan Macmillan, ISBN: 9781529062441

THE story unfolds in the garden of paradise – supposedly, aeons after Adam and Eve were banished into a world of suffering and death.

Their defiance is now told as a cautionary tale to the small community of people living eternal lives while tending to the garden, under the watchful eyes of the angels (divine beings who look like gigantic birds).

However, a woman has once again upended the seeming harmony and virtue of the garden, after it is believed that she had breached the garden’s boundary – and fled. The angels fear that Tabi’s actions will tempt others to follow her – especially her friend and workmate, Ebon, or the outcast fallen angel, Jamin.

The angels employ the services of the town snitch, Alum, to find out how she escaped and to identify any of the others who might consider decamping.

I found the re-imagining of Eden interesting although that is where my praise, unfortunately, ends for the book.

Besides the theological critique and a show of the way in which power and envy can corrupt any heart, I struggled to find the purpose/value of the novel. But even then, these ideas are not new.

Crace writes beautifully, but I did not find myself engrossed in the pages, or invested in the characters. There were a few elements missing here. – Mariclair Smit – 2/5 stars