Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #477477 in Books
• Published on: 2009-03-31
• Released on: 2009-03-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781555975227
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From The New Yorker
When Eric Loesch returns to the small town in upstate New York where he was reared, he dutifully describes life there in meticulous detail: the woman who sells him his dilapidated house and its six hundred and twelve acres, the hardware store he visits, the large outcropping of rock he can see from his bedroom window. And when he discovers that this rock in the center of his view marks a tiny patch of land that is not, legally, his, and that the owner’s name has been blacked out on the property deed, he decides to fill the gap in the official record. Meanwhile, the reader is wrestling with the narrator’s own troubling omissions: Why does Eric hate his sister? Why can he remember so little of his childhood, and why won’t the woman in the hardware store sell him a gun? As Lennon investigates the lethal consequences of failing to question authority, what begins as a claustrophobic tale of suspense gradually becomes an indictment of national policy.
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From Bookmarks Magazine
When it comes to psychological thrillers, even one like Castle that has literary aspirations, critics invariably judge a book's ability to suspend a reader's disbelief. And why not? While not flawless -- the author's plotting and a creaky backstory sometimes get in the way of a compelling character study, and unpredictable twists threw off some reviewers -- Lennon's latest novel, a weird mÈlange of John Fowles and Silence of the Lambs, is worth a look. Pay particular attention to descriptions of landscapes and the evolution of the novel's complex, unreliable narrator, a deeply troubled man who realizes, perhaps too late, that "every human interaction was a psychological experiment."

From Booklist
Returning to his hometown in upstate New York, Eric Loesch buys a large tract of forested land and the rundown house upon it. Emotionally constricted and painfully awkward in his dealings with locals, he is beset by strange feelings of fear and déjà vu as he first restores the house and then explores the land. Suspense mounts as he makes one strange discovery after another—among them that he is not alone—until a penultimate event unleashes a flood of memories and the novelist’s true agenda. In Mailman (2003), Lennon created an unforgettable, outsider protagonist, and Loesch is just as memorably crafted. What works less well here is the story’s construction: what begins as a literary suspense novel with an almost mystical atmosphere is suddenly, violently grounded in current events. Readers’ willingness to follow the surprising shift will depend on their willingness to embrace unconventional narrative. However admirable, and whether or not intentionally, Lennon’s overt message breaks the spell cast by his art. He’s still a terrific talent, but Castle isn’t as successful as his previous works. --Keir Graff

Customer Reviews

A big disappointment . . .
The writing style is fine, and for the first half of the book, I was pretty intrigued. Lennon set up "Castle" in such a fashion that it would have to have a pretty enthralling ending to work, and having read a few pieces by him in such places as Granta, I didn't doubt he'd pull it off. Sadly, though, he didn't.

The protagonist (so to speak) of the book, Eric Loesch, is a loner with some sort of mysterious chip on his shoulder and exceedingly poor social skills. He buys an old house surrounded by hundreds of acres of land in his old hometown and sets about remodeling the house in his odd misanthropic way, and exploring the woods surrounding it. Not much emerges for quite a while, but Lennon artfully builds a high level of tension around the scant happenings.

Then, rapidly, the book falls apart. As another review pointed out, the ending weaves in two additional plot lines into the existing narrative. Without spoiling it, one of them makes almost no logical sense without a very ardent belief in the capability of deeply-buried memories suddenly springing forth into a full consciousness which supersedes empirical reality. Here, even with the artful suspension of plausibility one might grant a writer, it makes no sense. It's unbelievable to a nearly comic extent.

Weave in an additional plot line with greater believability but even less of a connection to the pre-existing narrative and . . . well, you've lost me as a reader. I reread the last fifty pages three times trying to find some cohesion or point to the book. And I failed each time. I'd consider this book the product of someone who just cannot write, were it not for the fact that Lennon's style is impressive and that I've read fine things by him before. Even as a curiosity, this would be a tough book to recommend.

PTSD wrought in fiction makes for a riveting read
I'm struggling as to how, exactly, to describe this book. I can give you the basic plot: a man originally from small town, Upstate New York returns to where he grew up, many years after he'd left. Something terrible happened in his family while they lived there, but he's been away so long not many people remember him. He purchases a large tract of land in the country, including an older house that's falling into disrepair. The land is also partially forested with a strange, bowl-shaped forest, in the middle of which is a large rock.

The man is, how do I put this, antisocial. Perhaps pathologically so, as he's unrepentant. He considers himself superior to everyone he meets, and doesn't have a firm grasp on his temper or his tendency toward righteous indignation, even when no offense was intended. He fixes up the house on his own and moves in. When he starts exploring the forest he has strange memories that seem part flashback, part imagination. And the reader doesn't know which until much later in the book.

Telling more would be spilling the beans. And there will be no bean spilling here.

So, how did I feel about the experience of reading this book? I felt riveted. I had to know the secrets, why the main character felt such a visceral reaction to the forest, who or what was responsible for the strange things that started happening to him. What happened in his early life to make him the way he was.

There's a twist at the 3/4 point. It ties in where he'd been for many years of his absence, and how his childhood lead him to be the man he is. The switch is so sudden I didn't expect it. In fact, Lennon turns on the proverbial dime.

To those who may end up reading it, don't let it throw you too much. Keep reading. It'll all make sense by the end. A lot of readers won't like this technique. It's disruptive to the flow of what's a very exciting scene. I think it's done deftly, but not everyone will. This will be a sticking point with many, because from this point on things change rapidly and dramatically.

This is a strange novel. It reminds me of Jennifer Egan's The Keep, which is one of those love it or hate it books. I personally loved it. It won't satisfy people who like their loose ends all conveniently tied up, but those who love the dark, gothic writing of Ian McEwan may appreciate this book. It's different, but in many ways similar to his writing. It also has a Barbara Vine quality because it delves into the main character's extremely complex, partly amnesiac, perhaps psychotic mind.

It's an impressive read, but it won't be to everyone's taste. But for me? It was worth giving up sleep.

Harnessing rage--not a pretty story
The quality of writing in any J. Robert Lennon book is always unbelievably good. He is a master of the evocative detail and the unspoken truth. In this book, narrated in first person, he develops a perfect personal diction to suit a man sitting on an undetonated device of rage, suppression, repression and submerged memory. This is an intensely political story that avoids polemic, a short treatise on warfare and humanity that avoids being strident. But it is also a very difficult story to endure.

This is the third book by Lennon I've read. I loved Light of Falling Stars and did not like The Mailman at ALL. The problem is never with the writing, or even the plotting, though in Stars the plotting is minimal--it is more of an extended character study. In Mailman, the plot is a detailed, painful peeling back of a man's denial to reach the unsavory, shameful truths within, disease both physical and mental.

In Castle, Lennon has certainly given us a plot as well as a character. But the parallel track of the outer plot (buying and restoring the house, discovering the hidden aspects of the property, confrontation and retribution) runs quite tidily along the plot of the character's inner discoveries (that peeling away done so ably in Mailman). It's perfectly done and riveting after a fashion, but as with Mailman, Lennon asks a lot of his readers.

We are expected to identify with and develop sympathy for a character who has, as far as I can see, only the barest glimmers of anything lovable left in his psyche. The process of expungement is not his fault, and I felt awful for him, but I did not care for him. He was vivisected for me, every sad aspect of how he became who he was laid out on a table for me to see. But I couldn't do much but take it in and look away.

This book takes an unflinching look at the creation of a monster, and the political uses to which a person like that is put. I am definitely passing it on to the menfolk in my family, and I will be interested in their reactions to it. It's a thought-provoking and well-crafted novel. It's just not to my taste.