At the midpoint of his life, Jerry Marlow finds himself on a bus taking
him from Milan to Strasbourg. Sitting slightly off-center on the long
back seat, he takes stock of the wreckage strewn behind him--a failed
marriage, a daughter going astray, and an affair that has left him both
numb and licking every wound, self-inflicted or otherwise. Even Marlow's
teaching job at the university in Milan is jeopardized by new Italian
laws restricting foreigners. And ahead? What lies in wait around the
next bend? There are times when the most appalling premonitions seem all
too plausible, yet the pull of hope cannot be resisted.
Fueled by Marlow's scalpel-sharp commentary--double-edged and
unsparing--Europa is a decidedly adult road novel with a rich
international gallery of characters, and offers an explosive, sometimes
hilarious portrait of a man patching together his life on a continent
whose rhetoric of unity is less convincing--and far less exciting--than
its bizarre polyglot passions and ancient conflicts. Bristling with
ferocious wordplay, mordant comedy, and a vision of the sexes as honest
as it is incorrect, Europa is Tim Parks's finest novel to date.
