One Flew Over the Banyan Tree
by Alan Jansen
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Pub Date Sep 24 2015 | Archive Date Apr 13 2016
Description
This delightful book follows the adventures of a young boy's memorable stay at his cantankerous Grandmothers house after his father loses a top job and abandons his young family. Amusing chapters takes the reader through a remarkable panorama of adventures featuring the unique palavers and adventures of the “Breakfast- eaters” at an illegal shanty restaurant (which for want of a signboard is dubbed the “Nameless”), the ruminations of a tree-climbing canine philosopher who despairs of the human race, a dastardly election campaign, an elixir for becoming young again, headless ghosts, dubious scholars at a private school, and plenty more lovable incidents and adventures.
The book paints a portrait of life in a specific district of a fictional former British colony in the early sixties.
Advance Praise
One Flew Over the Banyan Tree is rich with meticulous detail and digression, and the payoff for the many escapades is worth the wait.
The talent displayed in drawing the eccentricities, habits, speech, and inner lives of both major and minor characters is deep. This is a satisfying, picaresque feast.Characters are drawn with insightful clarity. Standouts include Grandmummy, a “Dragon” whose belief in apartheid keeps her own household divided; Rohan, her scrappy, clever grandson and dogsbody; Salgado, Rohan’s classmate and a witty glutton; Bellakay, an intellectual, impoverished raconteur; and Oswald, a cowardly, petty uncle whose aspirations fuel the well-drawn misadventures in the chapter “Young Love and a Tyrant.” Other characters include regulars at the Nameless restaurant, family, and an out-of-place, anthropomorphized canine.
The contrast between the book’s elevated language and the everyday material is a splendid mash-up of mock-seriousness and humor.
-- Clarion (4 stars)
This gentle comic novel is set in a fictional island nation called Victoria, suffused with bitter sweet Post-Colonial nostalgia and populated with quirky characters. Jansen brings so much light-hearted affection to this tale of growing up in a fondly remembered place that readers will find it hard to resist its warmth.
-- Blue Ink Review
Marketing Plan
Alan Jansen was born in British Colonial Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, and was educated at the renowned St. Joseph's College in Colombo. An engineer by profession, he now lives in Stockholm, Sweden. He enjoys travel, the Scandinavian solstice, and loves dogs and cats. This is his first novel.
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