Restless

by William Boyd

Overview

"I am Eva Delectorskaya," Sally Gilmartin announces, and so on a warm summer afternoon in 1976 her daughter, Ruth, learns that everything she ever knew about her mother was a carefully constructed lie. Sally Gilmartin is a respectable English widow living in picturesque Cotswold village; Eva Delectorskaya was a rigorously trained World War II spy, a woman who carried fake passports and retreated to secret safe houses, a woman taught to lie and deceive, and above all, to never trust anyone.

Three decades later the secrets of Sally's past still haunt her. Someone is trying to kill her and at last she has decided to trust Ruth with her story. Ruth, meanwhile, is struggling to make sense of her own life as a young single mother with an unfinished graduate degree and escalating dependence on alcohol. She is drawn deeper and deeper into the astonishing events of her mother's past—the mysterious death of Eva's beloved brother, her work in New York City manipulating the press in order to shift public sentiment toward American involvement in the war, her dangerous romantic entanglement.

Now Sally wants to find the man who recruited her for the secret service, and she needs Ruth's help. Restless is a brilliant espionage audiobook and a vivid portrait of the life of a female spy. Full of tension and drama, and based on a remarkable chapter of Anglo-American history, this is listening at its finest.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780747586203
Publisher:	Gardners Books
Publication date:	01/02/2007
Edition description:	New
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 1.25(h) x 9.00(d)

About the Author

William Boyd is the author of eight novels, including A Good Man in Africa, An Ice Cream War and Any Human Heart. Born in Ghana, Africa in 1952, Boyd often sets his novels in far-off exotic locations in the tradition of Graham Greene. From Manila to the deep American South, Boyd’s novels traverse time and place exploring the human condition. A former Oxford lecturer in English literature, Boyd’s writing bares the hallmark of meticulous historical research. His works have received several awards, including the Whitbread Award for Best First Novel, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction. Boyd has also penned thirteen screenplays that have been turned into film. William Boyd currently lives with his wife Susan in London and southwest France.

Reading Group Guide

1. What drives Eva to join the British secret services? Is she motivated solely by a desire to avenge her brother Kolia’s death?

2. How does Eva’s background make her an excellent recruit for the world of espionage?

3. In becoming a secret agent, what part of her humanity does Eva sacrifice?

4. Lucas Romer instructs Eva that ‘Rule Number One’ of espionage is to not trust anyone. If an agent can’t trust anyone, can they ultimately remain loyal to their nation?

5. Eva notes Romer’s tendency to order oysters when dining with her; considering the aphrodisiac a symbol of their relationship. Romer also discourages Eva from receiving extensive arms training. How is sex used as the ultimate weapon in the novel?

6. Romer’s AAS Ltd. specializes in media distortion: creating misleading stories that are planted with legitimate news agencies. The goal is to influence the course of world events. Consider the current war in Iraq and the role the media played in the build up to the American invasion in 2003?

7. How does Eva’s past prevent her from showing more affection towards her daughter Ruth?

8. Timothy Thoms concludes that Lucas Romer was a Soviet agent working at keeping the United States from joining Britain against Nazi Germany, thus allowing the Soviet Union to defeat Germany on her own terms and preventing an American post-war presence in Western Europe. Yet, prior to the Soviet counterattack of Dec. 5, 1941, the Soviet Union would have been desperate for American aid as the fall of Moscow was a real danger. Since Romer and his team were present in the United States prior to Dec. 1941 (during the Soviet Union’s darkest hours), is it not more likely that Romer was a German agent since Germany had more to gain at this stage than Russia in keeping the United States out of the war?

9. At the end of the novel, Eva is seemingly caught off guard when her daughter Ruth asks about Uncle Kolia. The author writes that Eva repeats Uncle Kolia’s name as if testing the phrase, savouring its unfamiliarity. In carrying a number of identities throughout her lifetime, has Eva lost her sense of identity and personal history?

10. The novel highlights extensive efforts by the BSC to influence American foreign policy. Was the BSC justified in attempting to draw an isolationist nation into the Second World War? Consider the following scenario: Prior to the Iraq War, the CIA uses similar tactics to the BSC in an attempt to draw Canada into the war. Would the United States have been justified in carrying out such actions?

Foreword

1. What drives Eva to join the British secret services? Is she motivated solely by a desire to avenge her brother Kolia’s death?

2. How does Eva’s background make her an excellent recruit for the world of espionage?

3. In becoming a secret agent, what part of her humanity does Eva sacrifice?

4. Lucas Romer instructs Eva that ‘Rule Number One’ of espionage is to not trust anyone. If an agent can’t trust anyone, can they ultimately remain loyal to their nation?

5. Eva notes Romer’s tendency to order oysters when dining with her; considering the aphrodisiac a symbol of their relationship. Romer also discourages Eva from receiving extensive arms training. How is sex used as the ultimate weapon in the novel?

6. Romer’s AAS Ltd. specializes in media distortion: creating misleading stories that are planted with legitimate news agencies. The goal is to influence the course of world events. Consider the current war in Iraq and the role the media played in the build up to the American invasion in 2003?

7. How does Eva’s past prevent her from showing more affection towards her daughter Ruth?

8. Timothy Thoms concludes that Lucas Romer was a Soviet agent working at keeping the United States from joining Britain against Nazi Germany, thus allowing the Soviet Union to defeat Germany on her own terms and preventing an American post-war presence in Western Europe. Yet, prior to the Soviet counterattack of Dec. 5, 1941, the Soviet Union would have been desperate for American aid as the fall of Moscow was a real danger. Since Romer and his team were present in the United States prior to Dec. 1941 (during theSoviet Union’s darkest hours), is it not more likely that Romer was a German agent since Germany had more to gain at this stage than Russia in keeping the United States out of the war?

9. At the end of the novel, Eva is seemingly caught off guard when her daughter Ruth asks about Uncle Kolia. The author writes that Eva repeats Uncle Kolia’s name as if testing the phrase, savouring its unfamiliarity. In carrying a number of identities throughout her lifetime, has Eva lost her sense of identity and personal history?

10. The novel highlights extensive efforts by the BSC to influence American foreign policy. Was the BSC justified in attempting to draw an isolationist nation into the Second World War? Consider the following scenario: Prior to the Iraq War, the CIA uses similar tactics to the BSC in an attempt to draw Canada into the war. Would the United States have been justified in carrying out such actions?

Editorial Reviews

Boyd has written a crackling spy thriller, but more than that, he has evoked the atmosphere of wartime espionage: the clubby, grubby moral accommodations, the paranoia, the tense sexuality…Boyd's first novel, A Good Man in Africa, was a glinting satire, while An Ice-Cream War combined history, comedy and tragedy to wonderful effect. Here he has used a more muted palette, with no humor, no literary embroidery and little emotion. The pared-down style, clipped and understated, perfectly fits the sepia setting.
—The New York Times

Ben Macintyre

Atmospheric novel about an older woman whose past career as a WWII spy has come back to haunt her. Ruth Gilmartin is a single mother of one in 1976 England. On a visit to Grandma's, Ruth's mother, Sally, informs her that her real name is Eva Delectorskaya, and that she was an agent of British Intelligence during World War II. Eva hands Sally a manuscript of her story, abruptly launching the duo and the reader into the past. Boyd (Any Human Heart, 2003, etc.) seems more eager to tell Eva's story than Ruth's. Not surprisingly, as the elder Gilmartin finds herself swept into a world on the brink of war in 1939. Recruited by the swarthy and mysterious Lucas Romer, Eva is trained in spycraft and joins Romer's team, specializing in disinformation. Propaganda is Eva's stock in trade, and she has a knack for it. Still, for all her talent, she finds herself attracted to her secretive boss. Boyd has obviously read a few espionage novels. Can any young woman resist James Bond? Ruth leads a far less glamorous life. Saddled with Jochen, her inquisitive son, she teaches English as a Second Language. Her adventures occur vicariously, through the lives of the foreign students who study with her. With a nod to irony, Ruth teaches people to blend into their surroundings. At first, her mother's revelation seems to be a sign of senility. As Ruth begins to investigate, the shadows of her mother's former life reveal themselves. There is some truth to this work of fiction, and the real-life events make for a fascinating backdrop. Boyd skillfully manipulates language as easily as Eva does. He handles the plot more roughly. Ruth is clumsy albeit untrained, and the other characters in her world are ratherthinly sketched. Yet Boyd fits the puzzle together neatly in the end. A bit light on action and intrigue, but a cool, collected effort.

Kirkus Reviews

Boyd has written a crackling spy thriller, but more than that, he has evoked the atmosphere of wartime espionage: the clubby, grubby moral accommodations, the paranoia, the tense sexuality.”
–The New York Times

“Restless is hard to put down. It’s entertaining, thought-provoking and educational.”
–Edmonton Journal

“William Boyd has cleverly drawn from a rather obscure bit of espionage lore to craft a tale about how unknowable we really are to one another–even to those with whom we are seemingly most intimate.”
–The Gazette (Montreal)

“Restless is a brilliant story that sends the reader caroming between the 1940s . . . and the 1970s. . . . The book’s accurate history, intricate plot, complex characters and occasionally elegant diction make Restless not only a story with appeal for both sexes but also a potentially cinematic one.”
–The Vancouver Sun

“A clever and touching dance through the ghostly, illusion-strewn world of invented identities.”
–National Post

Praise for William Boyd:

“There’s hardly a writer around whose work offers more pleasure and satisfaction.”
–The Washington Post

“A gutsy writer . . . William Boyd is good company to keep.”
–Time

“Mr. Boyd seems singularly blessed with both an innate love of storytelling and the talent to render those stories in swift, confident prose.”
–Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

“A remarkably elastic, eclectic work. . . . Boyd has never been afraid to stretch himself, either thematically or stylistically.”
–The Globe and Mail

“One of the most skilful and appealing writers at work today.”
–The Atlantic Monthly

“Boyd has an exceptional ability to tell a really compelling story, in dense imaginative detail, about characters with complex, and convincing, emotional lives.”
–Los Angeles Times Book Review

From the Publisher

Rosemund Pike’s transitions are seamless as she brings together an aging mother’s revealing memoir and a plot of revenge involving both the mother and her daughter. Pike’s muted tones reflect the puzzlement of daughter Ruth as she discovers that her mother, Sally Gilmartin, was actually Eva Delectorskaya, a Russian émigré, who became Eve Dalton, a spy for the British Secret Service in 1939. Pike’s serene account captures Sally’s habits of calm watchfulness, learned early and practiced throughout her life as she is caught up in intrigues that challenge her age, intelligence, and training. Most troubling are residual worries that trouble Eve long after she escapes the Secret Service and that make her daughter, and listeners, wonder if her restlessness is inescapable. S.W. 2007 Audies Award Finalist © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

APR/MAY 07 - AudioFile