- Paperback: 320 pages
- Publisher: Tor Books (Feb 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0312872283
- ISBN-13: 978-0312872281
- Product Dimensions: 20.3 x 13.7 x 2.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,391,328 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
Amazon.co.uk Review
When customers seek their memories in Half Remembered Things, Kevin Grierson's New York shop, they gawk at the price tags attached to the toys of their childhood. Kevin reflects: The past is always just a bit more expensive than we thought possible.
And so it is for Kevin, a successful middle-aged antiques dealer whose past is exacting a price: he journeys down dark memories of peddling his young body to strangers, destroying himself with booze and speed, striving to become predator rather than prey on the streets of New York in the ‘60s.The problem, as he sees it, is that his Shadow--more than an alternate self but less than an independent doppelganger--is the bad guy, the one who would bring back the old habits. But his Shadow is not purely evil, and Kevin is not purely good. The two of them have much to learn if they ever hope to be reconciled.
Minions of the Moon is an absorbing, beautifully wrought novel of dark fantasy, its complex web of stories told in interweaving strands, its dreamlike images balanced by a clean, matter-of-fact prose style. --Fiona Webster, Amazon.com --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
Kevin Grierson has a Shadow with a mind of its own. It likes thrills, it likes power, it likes the rush of drugs and danger. From the suburbs of Boston to the streets of New York, from the false glamour of hustling and drug-dealing, Grierson's Shadow keeps him walking the edge of destruction and madness. Then a simple robbery goes horribly wrong. With the help of a flawed saint named Leo Dunn, Grierson struggles to banish his Shadow, and succeeds. Temporarily. Years later, sober and settled, at peace with his world, Kevin Grierson meets his Shadow again. And this time it won't go away.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
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
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Tired of the self-conscious literary form? Of the sainted Salman Rushdie disguising a lack of imagination - and skill - behind oh! so clever word games? Of Sebastian Faulkes producing yet another script for a B Movie? Tired, in fact, of the whole middle-class angst literary genre?
Read Minions. It isn't a genre 'gay' book. It is brilliantly written and with a searing honesty you can taste. This is why American writers dominate the English language market: overall they're better.
Read Minions. It isn't a genre 'gay' book. It is brilliantly written and with a searing honesty you can taste. This is why American writers dominate the English language market: overall they're better.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Embedded in _Minions of the Moon_ is a suberb ghost story, but around that fun, spooky story swirls a lot of rather disjointed narrative about addiction.
The coolest part of this book was the whole doppelganger motif: Kevin has a double and it is not a mere figment of his imagination. Like his mother before him, he has a doppelganger that often carries on a life apart from him. At first the eerie poem incantations from his old Irish aunt is his only apotropiac. Later in the book some mysterious characters called "sojourners" appear that never quite get explained, but are spookier for their vagueness. The best part of this idea was that it was only together that Kevin and the double form a "whole human being." The narrative then sets off in the direction of their union (one thinks).
If this were all the story, I would have liked it much better. But to this, the author tries to add less supernatural dimensions to the doppelganger theme with a alcohol and drug addiction subplot. And, admittedly, a writer would have to delve far and deeply into the psychology of addiction to write anything eye-popping on that topic after David Foster Wallace's phenomenal _Infinite Jest_.
But Mr. Bowes is a good writer. I just thought there were two or three distinct books here, much more disjointed than Kevin person and Fred the doppelganger.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Maybe one doesn't need to know how it feels to be a fifteen year old hustler selling his body at the Y, or walking through a rotten tenement to score some heroin from some animal that might just as well kill as deal. This author knows and communicates the disorienting merry-go -round of addiction, the intense highs as well as the loss of perspective as experienced by the protagonist, (and through superior storytelling,experienced by the reader.)The story takes some work to get through as it really is a tapestry or mosaic of vignettes,some in the present or near past and some only in dreams of the past.Does he really have a double? Or is the wraith-like figure merely an allegory for the evil he has done? The darkness of the story is gut wrenching as is his search for humility, charity and peace. Like a gritty film noir Alice in Wonderland, the story takes the reader to a place he longs to escape from,while hoping for the redemption of the hero and his eventual escape as well.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Beautiful, horrible, magnificent
I couldn't put this book down. Bowes is one of the best writers I've encountered in years. He gives us a tour, vividly evoked, of some of the more hideous realities of our time,... Read more
Published on 22 July 1999
A Fine And Brave Book
This is one of the most remarkable books I've seen in a long time. Remarkable not just in the quality of the writing - which is extraordinarily fine, but no surprise to anyone... Read more
Published on 23 April 1999
Yawn
This book was a complete and utter bore. Nothing exciting AT ALL happened and it draaaaaags ever so much. Save your $25 -- get The Tooth Fairy!
Published on 3 April 1999
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Fantasy > Contemporary
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.
