Having read Gunesekera's first novel, 'Reef', which made the long list for the Man Booker Prize in 1994, so much that I booked a week's stay at an Arvon writing retreat to study writing with him. It was there that I bought a copy of 'Heaven's Edge', handing over my payment to the author in person.'Heaven's Edge' has many of the hallmarks that made 'Reef' so good: Gunesekera's kind, lyrical voice, always gentle, always thoughtful (very much like the man's speaking voice); beautiful descriptions of a landscape seen through a returning migrant's eyes. But in the end I found his attempt to write a futuristic novel unconvincing, as if he was reaching beyond his own imaginative limits, such novelties as there were seemed clunkily contrived for the convenience of the writer to help him out of a plot cul-de-sac of his own making. All in all, a disappointment: I really wanted to enjoy this as much as 'Reef'.
