Showing posts with label psychological fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label psychological fiction. Show all posts
Nov 9, 2018
May 21, 2018
May 12, 2018
Apr 1, 2018
Jan 5, 2018
Jul 4, 2017
Jun 1, 2017
Jan 7, 2017
Dec 1, 2016
Aug 2, 2016
Feb 1, 2016
The secret history - Donna Tartt
The secret history - Tartt, Donna
Summary: Richard Papen, a relatively impoverished student at a New England college, falls in with an exclusive clique of rich, worldly Greek scholars and soon learns the dreadful secret that keeps them together. Reprint - (Baker & Taylor)
Publishers Weekly Reviews
Tartt's much bruited first novel is a huge (592 pages) rambling story that is sometimes ponderous, sometimes highly entertaining. Part psychological thriller, part chronicle of debauched, wasted youth, it suffers from a basically improbable plot, a fault Tartt often redeems through the bravado of her execution. Narrator Richard Papen comes from a lower-class family and a loveless California home to the ``hermetic, overheated atmosphere'' of Vermont's Hampden College. Almost too easily, he is accepted into a clique of five socially sophisticated students who study Classics with an idiosyncratic, morally fraudulent professor. Despite their demanding curriculum (they quote Greek classics to each other at every opportunity) the friends spend most of their time drinking and taking pills. Finally they reveal to Richard that they accidentally killed a man during a bacchanalian frenzy; when one of their number seems ready to spill the secret, the group--now including Richard--must kill him, too. The best parts of the book occur after the second murder, when Tartt describes the effect of the death on a small community, the behavior of the victim's family and the conspirators' emotional disintegration. Here her gifts for social satire and character analysis are shown to good advantage and her writing is powerful and evocative. On the other hand, the plot's many inconsistencies, the self-indulgent, high-flown references to classic literature and the reliance on melodrama make one wish this had been a tauter, more focused novel. In the final analysis, however, readers may enjoy the pull of a mysterious, richly detailed story told by a talented writer. 75,000 first printing; BOMC and QPB selections. (Sept.) Copyright 1992 Cahners Business Information.
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Rules of Civility - Amor Towles
Summary: A chance encounter with a handsome banker in a jazz bar on New Year's Eve 1938 catapults Wall Street secretary Katey Kontent into the upper echelons of New York society, where she befriends a shy multi-millionaire, an Upper East Side ne'er-do-well, and a single-minded widow.
Booklist Reviews
This rhapsodic tribute to a bygone era conjures up mesmerizing images of 1930s New York. Two worlds collide on New Year's Eve 1937, and three lives will never be the same. For Katey Kontent and Eve Ross, two working gals out on the town, a chance encounter with patrician banker Tinker Grey sets into motion a series of events causing far-reaching consequences. As Towles explores the seemingly random ways in which both choice and chance can impact the future, Katey, Eve, and Tinker each face a dark night of the soul, during which fates are twisted, reshaped, and realigned. Discerning readers will draw parallels between Towles and the ominously ironic Edith Wharton while relishing the fact that the snappy dialogue and descriptive prose are wrapped in a compelling narrative.
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Jan 1, 2016
My abandonment - Peter Rock
Booklist Reviews
Rock s previous novels and stories have been imbued with a sense of unease and uncertainty (The Unsettling, 2006). So it is with this deeply unsettling and finely wrought tale. It s narrated matter-of-factly by 13-year-old Caroline, who lives furtively in Forest Park, a large nature reserve on the edge of Portland, Oregon, with her father, who has turned his back on society. Their lives revolve around remaining invisible to the larger world. Homeschooled in the woods and at a public library, Caroline appears fully at home with minimal possessions and without much human contact. At first the lives of father and daughter seem nearly idyllic, but Rock deftly ratchets up the uncertainties, and the idyllic edges past the unusual toward the unthinkable and the tragic. Based on a true story (think Krakauer s Into the Wild), My Abandonment is a haunting novel, masterfully told. Copyright 2009 Booklist Reviews.
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Brooklyn - Colm Toibin
Booklist Reviews
In his latest novel, following The Master (2004), a celebrated and highly imaginative re-creation of the life of American novelist Henry James, Toibin maintains his focus on the past. Keeping the pace relatively slow and stressing the wealth of authoritative detail, he contrasts small-town Ireland and big-city Brooklyn in the early 1950s, highlighting the vast differences between the two in customs and opportunity. Eilis Lacey, a smart young woman unafraid of hard work, must leave employment-poor Ireland to find a more lucrative existence in booming New York City. Under the auspices of an Irish priest, Eilis secures employment at a department store and residence in a rooming house for young women. She meets a handsome, charming Italian man, and their relationship quickly flowers into love. When her outgoing sister dies in Ireland, Eilis returns home and must face the decision to stay put or go back to the more exciting life she had begun to create in Brooklyn. Copyright 2009 Booklist Reviews.
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Sep 9, 2015
I married you for happiness - Lily Tuck
Summary: The tale unfolds over a single night as Nina sits at the bedside of her husband, Philip, whose sudden and unexpected death is the reason for her lonely vigil. Still too shocked to grieve, she lets herself remember the defining moments of their long union, beginning with their meeting in Paris. She is an artist, he a highly accomplished mathematician--a collision of two different worlds that merged to form an intricate and passionate love. As we move through select memories, real and imagined, the author reveals the most private intimacies, dark secrets, and overwhelming joys that defined Nina and Philip's life together.
Booklist Reviews
This short, affecting, original novel, by the author of the National Book Award–winning The News from Paraguay (2004), which was also an effective and unique novel (about a nineteenth-century South American dictator), takes readers of literary fiction to a place that could have afforded a macabre experience but is saved by the sensitivity of the author. The premise is not complicated. Late-middle-aged Nina discovers that her husband, Philip, who appears to be napping, has actually died in his sleep, and she sits by his bedside for a whole night. Of course, Nina's thoughts are going to be centered on their life together, but, naturally, they do not follow in any logical order. These mental perambulations through their marriage form the substance of the novel. Tuck thoroughly understands why a wife would desire to do this and, as a consequence, makes the act a sweet one, rich in sentiment, poignancy, and honesty. The result is that the reader imagines that this kind of personal tribute to a now-deceased loved one is absolutely appropriate. Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews.
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