Friday 10 November 2017

Nour - a character examination

First of all, thank you for having me I’m delighted to be here!

I’d love to tell you more about one of the characters from my novel, The Dying Game.

Nour is the mother of our heroine, Anna. No longer  a dedicated member of the Party, she now spends her days in her  father’s old apartment as a dissident and outcast,  trying to make a living on the outskirts of the totalitarian world where you cannot think or speak freely without paying a price.

Nour is the kind of person that behaves as she wants to, thinks or feels for the moment, but is ever-changeable in her beliefs. When she believes in the system, that is the right thing to do, but once she stops, then THAT is the right thing to do. She always thinks she’s right, which of course can be a very frustrating trait for a child (or an adult, as Anna is now) to deal with. Anna describes Nour as ‘never been much of a mother hen. More like a mother dinosaur, the type who laid her egg and then walked away.’  Since childhood Anna has been vying  for her mother’s attention, and now as an adult, she has distanced herself from her. When  Anna  becomes a mother  herself, her own upbringing impacts how she faces motherhood, and is  incapable to care solely for her daughter and to love her unconditionally. Instead, it is Nour who  cares for Anna’s daughter, which makes Anna rely on her mother in a way she hadn’t before, but also raises conflict between them. But Nour isn’t entirely unlikeable, she does have  some redeeming qualities. For example, she’s incredibly loyal  when she needs to be and she’s able to suss  out the truth and nonsense when she sees it, regardless  it it’s the right  time or place .

I like to think of  Nour, Anna and Siri (Anna’s daughter), as the alternative  Gilmore
Girls.  Three generations of women tied to each other, but set in a totalitarian world without the cosy haven of the Stars Hollow community.  

So, if you’re up for a novel that isn’t all about the  feel- good factor , and explores what it is to be a mother, the sacrifices we make for love in all forms, as well as a study of human nature and how we react under extreme pressure,  The Dying Game might just be the book for you. Enjoy!


The Dying Game by Åsa Avdic is published by Windmill in paperback and eBook, £7.99
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1114362/the-dying-game/


The Dying Game by Asa Avdic
Do you live to play? Or play to live? The year is 2037. The Soviet Union never fell, and much of Europe has been consolidated under the totalitarian Union of Friendship. On the tiny island of Isola, seven people have been selected to compete in a forty-eight-hour test for a top-secret intelligence position. One of them is Anna Francis, a workaholic bureaucrat with a nine-year-old daughter she rarely sees and a secret that haunts her. Her assignment: to stage her own death and then to observe, from her hiding place inside the walls of the house, how the six other candidates react to the news that a murderer is among them. Who will take control? Who will crack under pressure? But then a storm rolls in, the power goes out, and the real game begins. . . .

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