This was followed by LONGING, in 2013, on the main stage at Hampstead Theatre, an adaptation of two short stories by Anton Chekhov. Like life itself, a simple story of powerful events linked to a few choices resonates with many universal themes. Right from the beginning it has the feel of something rather unusual and for me there was a definite double-take moment when I realised I’d found my place. Hope is trying to figure out all that's happened to her, both in England with her husband and the events that caused her to flee to a new job in Africa, and the challenges she's faced since then.

What is important is that the author has experienced civil wars in Africa, The Biafran War, so the war episodes feel pitch perfect. However recondite, however parochial, she was adding a few grains of sand to that vast hill that was the sum of human knowledge.Like his 2012 book, Waiting for Sunrise, Boyd employed a complex structure in this 1990 novel about science and discord, both marital and professional. Heeding the good advice to “start a novel on a day that’s different,” Boyd, who knows how to tell an excellent story, begins the Congolese/Angolan thread of his story on the day Hope discovers that one group of chimps – they’ve split into two groups and are in the midst of territorial wars – has turned to cannibalism, infanticide, organized aggression, and overt brutality, acts usually reserved for human beings, and something Mallabar’s work has shown chimps simply do not do. But Boyd’s writing reflects an extraordinarily intelligent man who’s learned his craft extremely well.

Mallabar repeatedly tells Hope that, as the world’s foremost expert, he knows everything there is to know about chimpanzees. The book is published in 1990 and the only civil war I could find for this country was from 1997-1999.

As she walks the beach at the end, as in interludes elsewhere in the book, the theme of permanence despite perpetual change is realized.

I found these interesting, but unnecessary, and sometimes a bit too clever, and I really hate to read italics. The story intertwines different narrative strands as the reader is led into the vortex of Hope's complex world. The reader knows John is headed for a crash, and we wonder what will become of the Clearwater marriage once that crash happens. Now she was working again she enjoyed and savoured the unrelenting rigour of her approach to her task, the unswerving persistence of her routine and the evident success of her experimentation.

The chimpanzee wars are the most compelling part of Brazzaville Beach, though they are terribly, terribly sad.

This has the effect of making them both seem immediate as if they were taking place at the same time. The other aspect of the chimp story is Mallabar's reaction to the threat to his life's work, and I found this equally well executed and believable.Among other strengths, Ataraxia requires one to have a measure of control over one's emotions, something both John Clearwater and Eugene Mallabar lack - and that's understatement. The country is also in the midst of a civil war involving the government and at least 3 rebel groups. There’s the wonderful detail in the characters and settings and he’s a bit like Hope’s husband in the way he can present what is commonplace in new ways that make it a pleasure to get to know people and place. Hope, herself, seems to be drinking more and more, though this fact is simply never elaborated on – by anyone.