Something Remains

by Hassan Ghedi Santur

Overview

Andrew Christiansen, a war photographer turned cabdriver, is having a bad year. His mother has just died; his father, on the verge of a nervous breakdown, gets arrested; and he's married to a woman he doesn't love. To make matters worse, Sarah, the gifted actress from his past, storms back into his life, bringing with her a hurricane of changes and the possibility of happiness.

Keeping Andrew sane is his beloved camera through which he captures the many Torontonians who ride in his taxi. Also keeping Andrew rational is his friendship with Zakhariye, a Somali-born magazine editor grieving the death of a son. Through Zakhariye we glimpse a world beyond Toronto, a world where civil wars rage and stark poverty delivers everyday sorrow and anguish.

Something Remains probes the various ways humans grieve when the lives they build for themselves fall apart. It speaks of the joy we find in what remains and the hope that comes with life putting itself back together in ways we never imagined.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781770700093
Publisher:	Dundurn Press
Publication date:	01/14/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	328
File size:	743 KB

About the Author

Hassan Ghedi Santur was born in Somalia and immigrated to Canada when he was 14 just before the outbreak of civil war in his country. He eventually earned a B.A. in English literature and an M.F.A. in screenwriting at York University. Santur works as a freelance radio producer for CBC. He lives in Toronto

Editorial Reviews

A burned-out Toronto cabdriver named Andrew holds together a debut novel that braves big themes of grief and loss, but drowns in an excess of characters and plot. A former war photographer, Andrew abandoned his career after an existential crisis; meanwhile, his recently widowed father has become dangerously helpless in his grief; and Andrew's best friend, a literary magazine editor (and a Somali immigrant, like the author), feels his marriage withering after his son's death. In addition, Andrew crosses paths with an old student of his mother's, a successful actress named Sarah, with potentially serious consequences. Santur weaves together these relationships believably and invents credible interior lives for his characters, but his narrative has a tendency to wander in random directions: Andrew's Helsinki lover; Andrew's sister, Natalie; the minutiae of characters' work (including a full-length short story written by one). Heavy-handed rumination over life, death, art and politics also weighs down the proceedings. Though a disappointing start, Santur's career could blossom with experience and a more diligent editor. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

Something Remains was a pleasure to read. Hassan Ghedi Santur writes with intelligence and sympathy about a wide range of subjects: grief, love, sex, the endless complexities involved in human relationships. As the narrative weaves throughout the lives of an actress, an editor, a cabdriver, multicultural Toronto is brought to life with a global and extremely contemporary perspective. This is an ambitious, wise and, at times, very funny book by a young novelist definitely worth keeping an eye on. — Jules Lewis, author of Waiting for Ricky Tantrum (Dundurn Press, 2010)

Jules Lewis

"Santur attempts to preserve our city's almost tribal vitality by telling the multiple stories of people intersecting within it, which is to say by using character as the literary form of neighbourhood."

The Toronto Star

"It amazes me how the author, Hassan Ghedi Santur, can see into the souls of such a diverse group of characters; a photojournalist, his father, an actress, a Somali-born editor and the range of other people who effect and interconnect with their lives, and bring them vividly alive in my imagination. The profound insight he brings to his characters as they navigate through the streets of Toronto in search of something to fill the void, as they find that spark of hope that helps them to go on after their worlds have been destroyed by loss. A remarkable journey into the sorrow that life brings to find that something does remains after all. Something Remains struck me to my very core. So beautifully told." — Denyse Karn, Associate Artistic Producer, Nightwood Theatre & Co-Artistic Producer, In Good Company Theatre

Nightwood Theatre

"There is irresistible heart in this novel, an ambitious determination to encompass the complexity of the world in the lives of a handful of ordinarily flawed and striving people."

The Globe & Mail