Life and Times of Michael K

There was a cord of tenderness that stretched from him to the patch of earth beside that dam and must be cut. It seemed to him that one could cut a cord like that only so many times before it would not grow again.

Michael K is returning his elderly mother to her rural birthplace when she dies, leaving him to the mercy of roving armies in a South Africa gripped by war. Locked up, he escapes, determined to live life on his own terms. This compassionate and life-affirming novel speaks to the human need for connection-to each other and to the world-and an interior life.