Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1812515 in Books
• Published on: 2006-06-05
• Format: Import
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Customer Reviews

Disgusting, but impossible to forget
I read this 1996 novel by A.M. Homes when it was first published, but just thinking about it still gives me the shivers. It's a scary book, mostly because it forces the reader's mind to think in a sick and grotesque way.

The narrator is a 54-year old pervert who serving time in Sing Sing for the rape and murder of a 12-year old girl. He has served 23 years already when he receives a letter from a 19-year old girl who is planning to seduce a 12-year old boy. A correspondence follows which forces the pedophile's memory to reveal the most shocking and lurid details of his crimes.

This was easily one of the most disgusting books I ever read. The act of reading it made me nauseous, but yet I applaud the author for her courage to write it and do recommend it to the few brave souls who are willing to experience its horrific roller coaster ride.

But be forewarned: the disgust and revulsion last long after the book is finished, and its essence is impossible to forget.

Beautifully disturbing
I am tempted to call this a beautiful book in the same way that I feel the movie of "The Loved One," a very black-humored farce about funerals and death, is beautiful: It masterfully accomplishes what it sets out to do.

In rich, imaginative prose, Homes tells a compelling tale with all the fascination of a fatal car wreck and a cobra preparing to strike. If you found Nabokov's _Lolita_ disturbing, if you couldn't stomach Ellis's skillful but satirical and cold _American Psycho_, stay away from this book. It has both the warmth and tenderness of the former, and the in-your-face graphicness of the latter (probably even more in-your-face because of the warmth and tenderness). People have referred to the pedophilia, masturbation, and murder; don't forget homosexual prison sex and rape ... and how do you feel about saving scabs in a drawer for chewing and sucking on later?

Some of the other Amazon reviews here have been utterly hilarious: Homes should include them in splash pages of subsequent editions. There are the usual encomia and expressions of disgust, but "Billy Graham could just as well have written this"? uhum37 also complains that "every character remains profoundly moral" -- another judgment I cannot understand for the life of me, but I will nevertheless respond that the characters are telling their own stories (the 19-year-old's is additionally filtered through the sensibility of the narrator, for the most part -- and of course they are apt to regard themselves as moral.

Reviewers also ask the wrong questions. "Does this story need to be told?" one reader queried on 6/4/97. Of course not. No story "needs" to be told, whether it's Alice In Wonderland or Waiting for Godot. The real question is, does a story compel attention, does it make you think and feel (not necessarily think and feel lovely thoughts!), and does it play fair and maintain a certain plausibility even given its fantastic premises? "sevitt" in Israel wonders whether the narrator's reported flashbacks were true. It doesn't make any difference! He is telling the stories; they present either what he wants to think about himself or what he wants the listener to believe (and the listener is NOT the person who reads the book _The End of Alice_, remember, but a 19-year-old female correspondent who wants to seduce 12-year-old boys).

This is an amazing book. I look forward to reading Homes's other work, past and future.

Unlike Anything I've Ever Read
Before I talk about the subject matter, and why I believe this is an important and courageous book, let me comment on the writing. I found Homes' dreamlike, almost surreal style difficult to follow at first. Some of the diction and sentence structures seemed odd to me, and I was forced to slow down and read carefully to fully understand what was being said. After a while, I grew to love this style. It's strangely engaging, much like to book itself, and it lets you absorb the power of the words you are reading rather than speed through them.

As for the story itself, I was blown away. Homes really gets into the heads of the main characters and accurately (I think) captures the thoughts, emotions and motivations of, in turn, a 19-year old girl bursting with sexuality, a 12-year old boy on the cusp of discovering his own sexuality and a 60-something sex offender struggling with his inner demons. I found all three portrayals to be convincing. And what a story! At various times in the book, I was repelled, confused, aroused, disgusted or amazed, but I was never, ever bored. Some of those scenes will stay with me for many years, I'm sure. It's a challanging and controversal book, to be sure, but it reveals some truths about sexual power and attraction better than any non-fiction book could.