Gianna:
Bright's Passage
Josh Ritter
The Dial Press/Random House
Well some reviews are so perfect, so professional, and so
artistic, that you can’t expand on it. I offer to you my original post about my
#4 book on our list, Bright’s Passage by Josh Ritter. If you are familiar at all
with Ritter's music you won't be at all surprised at how wonderful this book
is. If you aren't familiar with Josh Ritter the musician you are really missing
out; he is widely considered to be one of our best songwriters at work today. My original post:
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| Josh Ritter |
I love this fucking book. (And let that be a quote on any
jacket – it's called "class"). I read this book in a fury of passion. I would not
put it down; everything else could wait. The story of Henry Bright (and what
can only be described as his journey) is so vivid, beautiful, funny, and
passionate…ahhh, I sound crazy already. Anyway, it will stay with you long after
the novel ends. It is as haunting, as it is luminous (and Liz…. I never say
that about a book do I? In fact when someone calls a book luminous I run, but
don’t run because I never use that word!) [We make fun of people who use the
word 'luminous' to describe books. Does it glow in the dark? Doubtful.
This is a very good book though.] This small book has so much going for it: set
during the First World War, a battle between good and evil, it's only $22,
and of course it's a love story. It’s a first novel to be sure, but my God what
a wonderful novel.
Rainn Wilson, Mary Louise Parker, and Glen Hansard (among others) reading from Bright's Passage:
Liz:
The Devil All the Time
Donald Ray Pollock
Doubleday
Gianna's already included The Devil All the Time, but obviously she should have ranked it much higher. I guarantee that this is the absolute best novel ever written by a former paper mill worker. It's Chuck Palahniuk without the goofy Chuck shtick, it's Flannery O'Connor on steroids, it's a cousin of Dan Chaon's Await Your Reply and Philipp Meyers' American Rust. It the Pulitzer Prize committee had the huevos to choose a book that is populated with rapists, killers, religious zealots and LOTS of darkness, The Devil All the Time could absolutely win.
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| Donald Ray Pollock |
The story revolves around a father and son coping with the dying mother in their little nuclear grouping. The father convinces the son that if they pray long enough, faithfully enough, crazily enough (complete with the sacrifices and ritual abuses), his mother will survive. The world, of course, doesn't work that way. This is a book of broken dreams and pain, and one of survival. It's a beautiful book; it's also the most violent fiction I've ever read. The Devil All the Time isn't for the faint of heart, but I can't sing its' praises enough.
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