RaveThe Kansas City StarThe Book of the title refers to the copy of the Bible that a preacher named Peter Leigh brings with him on the missionary trip of a lifetime, to a planet named Oasis ...Faber’s interests here lie with faith, belief and the ways in which we know and bear responsibility for one another ...Leigh is sent off by his wife at the start of the story, which Faber captures in perfectly disjointed writing, mixing the events leading up to his liftoff in much the same way one would find memories combined, overlapping ... Faber lets the story develop slowly, naturally — there aren’t stereotypical science-fiction plot devices shoehorned in to move the narrative along ...the scope of Faber’s writing narrows in to try answering big questions of love and faith.
Ha Jin
PanThe Kansas City StarWhere The Boat Rocker fails is in delivering any sense of narrative tension. Long-time readers of Jin know better than to expect a potboiler of political suspense that is neatly tied up with a bow. At the same time, it’s hard not to wish Jin had done a little bit more with the possibilities: distrust between the countries, between the man and woman, between publisher and author. When the end result is a book that feels more like the fictional Love and Death in September than a Ha Jin novel, it feels like a lost opportunity.
