Title: A Different Sun Author: Elaine Neil Orr
Published: April 2, 2013
Genre(s): Historical Fiction
Page Count: 400
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me. When Emma Davis reads the words of Isaiah 6:8 in her room at a Georgia women’s college, she understands her true calling: to become a missionary. It is a leap of faith that sweeps her away to Africa in an odyssey of personal discovery, tremendous hardship, and profound transformation.
For the earnest, headstrong daughter of a prosperous slave owner, living among the Yoruba people is utterly unlike Emma’s sheltered childhood—as is her new husband, Henry Bowman. Twenty years her senior, the mercurial Henry is the object of Emma’s mad first love, intensifying the sensations of all they see and share together. Each day brings new tragedy and heartbreak, and each day, Emma somehow finds the hope, passion, and strength of will to press onward. Through it all, Henry’s first gift to Emma, a simple writing box—with its red leather-bound diary and space for a few cherished keepsakes—becomes her closest confidant, Emma’s last connection to a life that seems, in this strange new world, like a passing memory.
This book was simply not what I was expecting—I’m not sure anyone could truly anticipate it, to be honest. A Different Sun is advertised as a story of African missionaries, but it was just…strange. Both the narrative style and the content itself were oddly hard to grasp. I don’t really know what to make of Orr’s story here. This book is an enigma.
The first noteworthy aspect of A Different Sun is Elaine Neil Orr’s writing style. For me, it was detached, remote, and clinical. The book often read like a very dry biography, dressed up with some strange metaphors and spiritual references. It wasn’t the kind of third person that get’s you right in the perspective character’s head; it was like watching the character from far away, through a telescope. I didn’t feel immersed or engaged at all.
The other problem I had is that, really, this book wasn’t about missionaries. At least, not in the way I’d thought it would be. Most of the text was spent writing about the protagonist’s marital problems, her whining, and her husband’s constant and vague illnesses. The fact that they were missionaries in Africa didn’t seem to be a major issue. You can write the disillusioned wife, uncommunicative marriage plotline anywhere.
The unique African setting was another draw to the book, but I wasn’t as charmed as I’d hoped to be in that respect, either. I didn’t feel like the author spent very much time at all dealing with Yoruba culture or landscape. Most of the information the reader received was through the filter of the protagonist’s judgmental observations (“The women are half-naked! How positively revolting!”).
I guess I was just expecting more from this. The jacket copy seemed to advertise a sort of uplifting story about struggle and passion, etc. Instead, I found A Different Sun to be a strangely written story about a bratty wife and her proud, petty husband. Whatever Orr intended to do with this story, whatever feelings/thoughts I was supposed to have, it wasn’t happening.
Really, I don’t know quite what to do with A Different Sun. I can definitely say it’s not a poorly-written book, but it fell flat for me all the same. It’s a different angle on missionary life for sure.
