"White Man's Grave"

"White Man's Grave"
Richard Dooling
Picador1994
ISBN # 0-312-13214-X

Michael Killigan went to West Africa, and "disappeared". Now, Boone Westfall is searching for his missing friend, deep in the jungles and off the beaten track, uncovering more about the countryside and the beliefs that inhabit the brush than he ever wanted to know. But, when disturbing signs point to Michael purposefully disappearing and the dark underbelly of politics behind it all, Boone might never find his friend, or his true self, again in the face of what the brush believes.

When I was a junior in undergrad, I took a course called "Travel Literature", and it was all about the narrative. We slogged through "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", "South" by Earnest Shackleton, "On the Road" by Kerouac, and several others. Including this little bit of fiction. Right around the time we were finishing up the book before this one, I had a massive allergy attack coupled with a twenty-four hour bug, and sat, delirious, in my room, reading this book nonstop. Needless to say, not much of it stuck. But, despite it being not even close to anything I'd normally read, I hung on to it and have read and reread it. I still don't understand it.
Dooling has a duel narrative happening, with Boone Westfall deep in Africa looking for Michael, and Michael's father Randall back in Indiana, trying to find out what the mysterious bundle is and if it has anything to do with the Unidentified Bright Object that showed up in his brain after an MRI. I tend to gloss over the parts with Randall, because it gets very heavy into medical terms, and I am very squeamish. Plus, Boone Westfall's narrative contains passages in Krio, which is fun to read. But, no matter how often I read it, I'm still not entirely sure how it ends. I know that sounds ridiculous, but there's something that happens with the timeline and I just lose the thread. Other than that hiccup, it's a very interesting read, and really creepy, especially if you kow nothing about African bush beliefs.