Triangulation

In Triangulation, his second novel, Phil Whitaker straddles 30 years and two continents, linking the seemingly incongruous through the lives of three people. Told through correspondence, clippings, and straight narration, the novel tells of the meeting of John, Lawrence and Helen at what was then the Directorate of Overseas Surveys at the end of the 1950s. Each is very different, embodying within the fabric of their personalities some of the moral, sexual and social changes that were taking place at a point in history characterised by flux. The security and orderliness of the maps that form the centre of their lives are contrasted with the events taking place around them, whether it's passion hiding within the dusty archives of the Directorate, or the political turmoil of a country at the heart of an Africa on the brink of independence. The triangulation of the title refers both to the eternal linking of the relationships that carry the novel, and to a method that allows a surveyor to chart and understand the land ahead of him. This process can be elating, sometimes destroying, but, as with life itself, it is relentless. Whitaker has written a poignant novel brimming with pathos, and a gentle understanding of a withering age and the apparent sureties that held its philosophies together. Triangulation will definitely ensure that his is a name that will be heard more often. --Natasha Billing


Genre: Literary Fiction