Exclusive interview with Fortunate author Andrew J. Sharp and a review of his novel about a female doctor who goes to Zimbabwe to heal
Rating: Three Stars
By Gabrielle Pantera
“Soon after my first novel was published, my youngest daughter came to see me by train from London,” says Fortunate author Andrew J. Sharp. “I received a text from her in capital letters, saying, ‘THE WOMAN OPPOSITE ME ON THE TRAIN IS READING YOUR BOOK!’ I asked my daughter to ask the woman whether she liked it. The text came back, ‘Oh! She says she loves it. She’s your publisher!’”
The facts woven into the story of Fortunate will be a revelation for those who don’t know much about the history of the struggle for African independence. Although it has a female lead, this book is not chick-lit or contemporary women’s fiction. It is more literary and digs deeply into politics and benefits from Sharp’s writing, which has a British dry wit that keeps the story moving, although the many characters and intricate plotting makes it easy to get lost. American readers may need to refer to a dictionary of British slang.
In Fortunate, Beth Jenkins and her husband Matt have only been married a short time when he has a brain aneurysm. Her husband is brain damaged and Beth, despite being a doctor, is unable to help her husband. Beth runs away from England. She goes to Zimbabwe to help the people there. She is also delivering the deed to a huge farm to a patient’s estranged son.
Sharp says he got the idea for Fortunate from three unconnected events. Sharp read a poem in a menu in a Greek café and has his character read that poem and have his life changed. Two, he saw a headline in the Independent newspaper that Zimbabwean secret services were threatening Zimbabweans living in the UK who were opposed to the Zimbabwean regime. Third, he was inspired by the book Forever Today, about a man who after a brain injury lives in the now. “Those three things all came together over the course of about a year to suggest my characters and plot,” says Sharp.
“For a novelist, just living is research in itself,” says Sharp. “I store away incidents, conversations, things I have read and then find that those experiences and remembered facts are invaluable in my writing. Beyond that, I researched cave art, the effects of brain injury, and read up on Zimbabwe’s politics and history. I also read Zimbabwean newspapers that spanned the time the novel is set in, having collected newspapers while visiting Zimbabwe and followed Internet news sources.”
“When I was a child, inspired by reading Tintin,” says Sharp. “I wanted to be a journalist and enjoyed writing stories with tragic or ominous endings. I’ve mostly got that out of my system now. I found myself studying medicine instead but this has never quenched the thirst to write. Fortunately there is a long tradition of a close link between medicine and writing. There have been many doctor-writers throughout history, including the Apostle Luke, Anton Chekhov, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and, more recently, authors such as Khaled Hosseini, Tess Gerritsen and Michael Crichton. Chekhov wrote, ‘Medicine is my lawful wife and writing is my mistress’.”
Sharp’s first novel, The Ghosts of Eden, was published in 2009. It won the 2010 Waverton Good Read Award for the best debut novel by a UK based author and was shortlisted for the 2011 International Rubery Book Award. He’s also written travel and commentary articles for magazines.
Sharp was born in London but his parents went to work in Uganda shortly after his birth. He has worked as a doctor in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Uganda. He now lives in the Midlands. “I learnt to walk on the stormy boat voyage to Mombasa,” says Sharp. “I spent my childhood in the dramatic landscapes of Kenya and Uganda where my grandparents owned an island on a beautiful lake.”
His website can be found at: www.andrewjhsharp.co.uk
Fortunate by Andrew J. Sharp. Trade Paperback, 376 pages, Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd (April 9, 2013). Language: English, ISBN: 9781783060016 $16.95
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