Drive-by Saviours, a novel by Chris Benjamin
Demoralized at his job
and dissatisfied with his life, Mark punches the clock with increasing
indifference. All that changes when he meets Bumi, an Indonesian restaurant worker.
Bumi’s radical genius and
obsessive-compulsive disorder raise suspicion among his paranoid
neighbours. With the mysterious death of local children the neighbours'
fear reaches a fevered pitch and Bumi is forced to flee to Canada.
Brought together by a chance encounter on the subway, Mark and Bumi
develop a friendship that forces them to confront their pasts. It is the latest offering from Roseway Publishing.
"Bringing to mind Hosseini's The Kite Runner, Chris
Benjamin's prose is beautiful, engaging and taut with tension as it
transports us back and forth between several worlds."
Carla Gunn, author of Amphibian
Weeks after its September release Drive-by Saviours made the Canada Reads Top 40 Essential Books list. It won the Salty Ink 2010 Judge a Book by Its Cover contest and was named one of the years four top-notch debut novels.
Says Carol Moreira
in The Globe and Mail, the story features "an unusual plot and a
character whose vitality and energy illuminate the novel."
Stephen
Patrick Clare of the Halifax Chronicle Herald calls Drive-by Saviours
"one of the finest first narratives to emerge from Atlantic Canada in
recent memory. Well-balanced and masterfully crafted with a prose that
is both poignant and poised, the work is certain to be considered for
literary awards.”
Atlantic Books Today's Jon Tattrie called it
"confident proof that great Atlantic Canadian literature need not
involve kilts or Cape Breton," adding, “[A] giant storytelling talent …
Benjamin does a superb job of weaving the two tales together.”
