Francesca Marciano

From the critically acclaimed author of Rules of the Wild, a thrilling, timely, and darkly funny story of friendship, human frailty, and war--and the role of outsiders in a country where they do not belong.Maria Galante--rule-abiding, shy, a perfectionist--and larger-than-life journalist Imo Glass are on assignment in Afghanistan: Imo to interview girls who've attempted suicide rather than be married off to older men, Maria to photograph them. But in a culture in which women shroud their faces and suicide is a grave taboo, to photograph these women is to dishonor--and perhaps endanger--them. Maria and Imo must find their way among spies, arms dealers, and mercenaries, and through the back alleys of Kabul and into Pashtun villages, where the fragility of life stands out in bold relief. Before the assignment is over, Maria will have to decide if it's more important to succeed at her work--and please Imo--or to follow her own moral compass.Stunningly evocative and richly observed, The End of Manners is a story of friendship and loyalty, of the transformative power of journeying outside oneself into the wider world.From the Hardcover edition.

A mesmerizing novel of love and nostalgia set in the vast spaces of contemporary East Africa.Romantic, often resonantly ironic, moving and wise, Rules of the Wild transports us to a landscape of unsurpassed beauty even as it gives us a sharp-eyed portrait of a closely knit tribe of cultural outsiders: the expatriates living in Kenya today. Challenged by race, by class, and by a longing for home, here are "safari boys" and samaritans, reporters bent on their own fame, travelers who care deeply about elephants but not at all about the people of Africa. They all know each other. They meet at dinner parties, they sleep with each other, they argue about politics and the best way to negotiate their existence in a place where they don't really belong. At the center is Esme, a beautiful young woman of dazzling ironies and introspections, who tells us her story in a voice both passionate and self-deprecating. Against a paradoxical backdrop of limitless physical freedom and escalating civil unrest, Esme struggles to make sense of her own place in Africa and of her feelings for the two men there whom she loves--Adam, a second-generation Kenyan who is the first to show her the wonders of her adopted land, and Hunter, a British journalist sickened by its horrors. Rules of the Wild evokes the worlds of Isak Dinesen, Beryl Markham, and Ernest Hemingway. It explores unforgettably our infinite desire for a perfect elsewhere, for love and a place to call home. It is an astonishing literary debut.From the Hardcover edition.