2005 Governor General's Literary Awards

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Product Description

This astonishing novel - unlike anything Gilmour has ever written before - begins with every parent's worst nightmare: the disappearance of a child. A father makes a casual error of judgement one evening and leaves his six-year-old son alone for fifteen minutes. When he returns the child is gone and three lives are changed forever. Has the boy been kidnapped? Spirited out of the country? Is he dead? The story that unfolds is told by the novel's narrator, a television host named Roman, who searches for his son through the city and through the underworld of dreams and tries to bring him back. Pursued by an unshakeable conviction that his son is speaking directly to him, Roman begins to enter a haunting relationship with the missing child and his own conscience. In the meantime, his behaviour becomes increasingly erratic and he is rejected by his grieving and angry wife, eventually fired from his job, and shadowed by a persistent policeman who thinks Roman is hiding the child. Written in the clear, elegant prose Gilmour is known for, "A Perfect Night to Go to China" is a completely absorbing and original work of fiction. It sets up a harrowing premise and doesn't let up until the last surprising page.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #739131 in Books
• Published on: 2005-03
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 180 pages

Review
Gilmour's prose style is spare and darkly funny, jewelled with clever metaphors and precise details. It's enjoyably reminiscent of Raymond Chandler..."A Perfect Night to Go to China" is a compelling example of smart writing about trauma, and an uncomfortably pleasurable read. (Quill & Quire )

Gilmour's prose has flashes of bright metaphor, and his dialogue is alert and alive. (The New York Times )

...compulsively readable.... It takes a sharp focus to give us this much in such a brief book. A lesser writer would have given us a leaden brick.... The amazing thing is that it is both a sleek, fast read and a compulsively devastating personal tragedy. When the story is this affecting, the result is a luminous reading experience, the kind we all crave - the kind we sometimes find, if we're lucky, in our favourite authors. I don't think it's going too far to mention such names as Camus, Graham Greene, Elmore Leonard and even Calvino...they all have style, intelligence and strength. Gilmour is one of the best writers we have. His new novel is exactly the kind of thing I'd love to see more of in Canadian writing. It's elegantly written without wasting time on irrelevant detail. It is firmly plotted. It is paced for speed. Something actually happens. I'm saving this book to share with my son. You might want to remember this one come Father's Day. (Toronto Star )

..."A Perfect Night" is unlike anything Gilmour has written before, and all the better for it. (Maclean's )

David Gilmour has created a short, powerful book that is profoundly emotive. (Calgary Herald )

...one of the most refreshing, moving, and supple works of fiction written since the 21st century began... (Books in Canada )

About the Author

David Gilmour is a novelist who has earned critical praise from literary figures as diverse as William Burroughs and Northrop Frye, and from publications as different as the New York Times to People magazine.  The author of six novels, including A Perfect Night to Go to China, which won the 2005 Governor General’s Award for Fiction, he also hosted the award-winning Gilmour on the Arts.  His books have been translated into eleven languages. He lives in Toronto with his wife Tina Gladstone.

 

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
I went out again that night.... I looked in garden sheds, in parking lots, in backyards. I whispered his name down dark stairwells. I said, "Simon, are you there?" A dog chased me from a back porch, snarling, pulling on a chain. A drunk staggered out of the darkness at me. I peered into an abandoned car. Nothing, not even a sensation. I tried to feel him, not think him, but I kept wondering, Where would I take him? Fifty-eight pounds. Where would you go? It had to be nearby. But when I stopped in front of a house or started up a driveway, I could feel a sort of invisible door close... He was slipping away from me. I said, "Don't go, Simon. Don't go."

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Customer Reviews

Harrowing Read
I picked this book up on a whim, intrigued by the title and encouraged by the fact that it got the Governor General's award. It's true the title has little to do with the book, but once I started reading, I couldn't stop. (It's not a very long book; it only takes about 1.5 hours to read, but it is so harrowing it feels longer.).

The author takes us into the mind of a person suffering the tortures of hell - the loss of his child through his own fault. It was the kind of mistake anyone could make (like "I'll leave him alone for 15 minutes while I run and get milk, he'll be OK" - except it wasn't milk, it was a trip to the neighbourhood bar to ogle a girl bad, so there can be no rationalizing, only self-loathing.)

I liked the fact that the main character was a superficial, unappealing guy. I liked the fact that he was short with his son putting him to bed, because he was so tired himself. That's real life. I liked the fact that after his son's disappearance he flips through his diary and it isn't filled with remembrances of his son, only with the remembrance that it was written when his son was there and is filled with inanity. His wife hates him after the disappearance and conveys this in the most bitter, true sentences "Don't call; I can't stand the disappointment when it's you." If he had been a nice guy the story probably would have turned maudlin. It didn't. The story, however gruelling, was not a bit sentimental.

The scenes where he hears his son whispering to him, leading him, where he has dreams so vivid they're hard to tell from reality, were all compellingly rendered. Thank God I haven't been through this but it felt true to me. When I finished the book I cried, not out of sadness but at the horror of it all, and then brought my 3-year-old into my bed where I could feel she was safe. Unlike Fiona, I would never recommend this book to someone who has lost a child. I wouldn't even recommend it to half the people I know who have a child; they worry enough already. In my opinion, this book is a tour de force, as the author makes a horror that most of us can't imagine invade every detail of life in a real and terrible way.

An intriguing read
A Perfect Night to go to China was an interesting book that compelled me - because, as soon as I got into the first couple of pages, I thought, "Whoa." And curiosity sunk in.

Roman, the protagonist, makes the biggest mistake of his life one night. He leaves his little boy alone for fifteen minutes to stroll into a bar.

When he gets back, his son Simon is gone.

At this point, the reader can sense Roman's mental and physical descent. He becomes obsessed with finding his son, believing that his son is communicating with him. Whenever he sleeps, he slips into a world, seemingly of the dead. He sees his mother there and, even, Simon. At these times he visits Simon, holds him close, tells him he misses him.
Meanwhile, his wife doesn't want to see him, he gets fired from his job. His behaviour is strange and at times he does not seem all there.

I'll have to admit it was heart-breaking to read this book. You really get a sense of what it's like, losing a child. How it becomes the centre of your world. Everything seems trivial to that one big gap in your life. And what shocks Roman is that, at times, he momentarily forgets about Simon. For example, when he sees a menacing dog. He is surprised, shocked, maybe even a little disappointed in himself, that he could, even for a moment, forget about his son.

A Perfect Night to go to China was a clear and easy read. It isn't even 200 pages, and I found that I breezed through it. Gilmour's writing is accessible. I love the way he uses similes - you can always picture his images and he doesn't use obscure words like some authors do. His dialogue is also very striking.

The title still strikes me as a bit of a mystery - I can see why he named his title that, but I am just wondering, Why China?

All in all, A Perfect Night to go to China is recommended. I'd recommend it especially to parents who have suffered the loss of a child, although that isn't a requirement. I am only 17 years old and I found this book intriguing. It is different, and that's what makes it original.
This is some fine work.

Excellent
I normally do not write reviews, although I do read a very large number of books each year. I am writing this review to hopefully offset the lower ratings given by others. This book, if any, deserves a higher average rating.

The book was astounding. Fabulous writing style, compelling narrative, and expresses and elicits more emotion in less than 200 pages than many other classics of much longer length.

Reading the book jacket I thought the story sounded depressing, and initially, after I started reading, I thought that the book was going to be like many other Can-lit books - gloomy, moody and dull. The story was definitely sad, but not depressing. It has a very realistic quality to it and such an excellent writing style that you simply get carried along with the narration. Once I had started it, I could not put it down.

I certainly understand that not all of us will enjoy the same books, but the two people that gave this book only one star puzzle me beyond words.

Jim