- Hardcover: 192 pages
- Publisher: Hamish Hamilton Ltd; 1st edition (5 April 1990)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0241129494
- ISBN-13: 978-0241129494
- Product Dimensions: 21.3 x 14.5 x 2.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 904,014 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
| ||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Set during a hot Chicago summer this is a deeply disturbing portrait of a psychopathic killer who is murdering female victims in a particularly gruesome manner by tying them up and mauling them in a wolf-like manner.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Mass Market Paperback
This is a book that will stay with you for a long time. It's very strange, quite disturbing and like nothing I've ever read.
Featuring a main character who is on a self-destructive depraved odyssey, it is certainly a page turner and I had no idea how it was going to turn out until the final chapter.
There's a lot crammed in here - gender roles, the absurdity of sex, the banality of everyday life, the secrets that we all keep and the inbuilt dishonesty that governs most of our interactions with other people (and loads more).
Fascinating - gripping - not for the prudish - highly recommended.
Featuring a main character who is on a self-destructive depraved odyssey, it is certainly a page turner and I had no idea how it was going to turn out until the final chapter.
There's a lot crammed in here - gender roles, the absurdity of sex, the banality of everyday life, the secrets that we all keep and the inbuilt dishonesty that governs most of our interactions with other people (and loads more).
Fascinating - gripping - not for the prudish - highly recommended.
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Parker Jagoda is a clever real estate developer in Chicago, stripping and scooping out the brick shells of large buildings, filling them up with shops and apartments. His wife is a former model and he is the father of baby Eddie, six months old. He lives in Evanston, a posh suburb, drives a BMW and is in great shape, having dieted on bran, nuts, fruit and yogurt for the past seven years.
This is the outer skin of an onion of a book, which Paul Theroux (PT) slowly peels off, layer after layer, clue after clue, to show what the happy couple have been doing over the years. Jagoda, the main protagonist, is early on shown to be suffering from what looks like a breakdown, an unravelling of his personality. He misreads his own thoughts and what other people might think of him. He has mood swings and bouts of amnesia. A woman who responded to one of his Personal Ads is found murdered. No clues. The papers call it a perfect crime. The killer is called The Wolf Man...
PT is an excellent craftsman rather than a divinely-inspired novelist hoping for immortal fame. He wrote this tale of madness from Jagoda's perspective, but gradually allowed his hero's very few close associates more and more speaking time and opportunities to act...
Jagoda is surely not a person to elicit sympathy or empathy on the part of the reader. Rather, it is Ewa, another girl who responded to one of his Personal Ads, who keeps up the reader's hope that something good will happen in this dark novel. Surely, PT or Jagoda will not kill her as well?
In this novel PT has brought together a number of themes explored in other books. Leading a double life is one. Protagonists practising and aggressively disseminating vegan diets based on no alcohol, no meat, no fat, no salt, no white sugar, etc. occur in at least four of his books (and all four practitioners turn out to be rather crazy) another.
The high point in the book is Jagoda's frenzied running commentary of a photo exhibition of Robert Mapplethorpe, but it is not enough to save the novel. Too much of its action is projected inside the disturbed mind of Jagoda and readers are really challenged to read on or give up. Not his best.
This is the outer skin of an onion of a book, which Paul Theroux (PT) slowly peels off, layer after layer, clue after clue, to show what the happy couple have been doing over the years. Jagoda, the main protagonist, is early on shown to be suffering from what looks like a breakdown, an unravelling of his personality. He misreads his own thoughts and what other people might think of him. He has mood swings and bouts of amnesia. A woman who responded to one of his Personal Ads is found murdered. No clues. The papers call it a perfect crime. The killer is called The Wolf Man...
PT is an excellent craftsman rather than a divinely-inspired novelist hoping for immortal fame. He wrote this tale of madness from Jagoda's perspective, but gradually allowed his hero's very few close associates more and more speaking time and opportunities to act...
Jagoda is surely not a person to elicit sympathy or empathy on the part of the reader. Rather, it is Ewa, another girl who responded to one of his Personal Ads, who keeps up the reader's hope that something good will happen in this dark novel. Surely, PT or Jagoda will not kill her as well?
In this novel PT has brought together a number of themes explored in other books. Leading a double life is one. Protagonists practising and aggressively disseminating vegan diets based on no alcohol, no meat, no fat, no salt, no white sugar, etc. occur in at least four of his books (and all four practitioners turn out to be rather crazy) another.
The high point in the book is Jagoda's frenzied running commentary of a photo exhibition of Robert Mapplethorpe, but it is not enough to save the novel. Too much of its action is projected inside the disturbed mind of Jagoda and readers are really challenged to read on or give up. Not his best.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I cannot comment on the product (i.e. the book) because I bought it for a relative, and of course it is the author who should get the plaudits for this product, but the service from 'The Perfect Book Store Ltd' was good. They e-mailed to say the book was a bit grubbier than they had advertised and did I mind. I didn't.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
