Review
'This novel of conspiracy and political intrigue creates a heady atmosphere reminiscent of Paul Auster...Smolen's spare style plays off nicely against the plot, and elaborate tapestry of twists and contradictions. Smolens (Cold) balances political commentary, excitement and heartbreak nicely, moving his career forward with sure-footed style.' -- Publishers Weekly 20020901 'A first rate political thriller' -- Boston Sunday Globe 20030130 Smolens's superior thriller is utterly absorbing -- The Times - The Invisible World 20030208 '"The Invisible World" enriches us, and subtly provokes us, while providing chills and thrills.' -- Boston Sunday Globe 20030130 'A perfecty-paced thriller that gently pulls you in.' -- Sunday Mirrior (on The Invisible World) 20021207 'A poignant and literate thriller' -- Guardian - on The Invisible World 20030126 'Achingly compelling' -- Booklist (on The Invisible World) 20021120 'Beautifully written and absorbing' -- Sunday Telegraph - Invisible World 20021210 'Smolens is excellent at physical detail, such as the crunch of the sand left in freshly cooked clams' -- Guardian - The Invisible World 20030126 "An enthralling cat and mouse adventure." -- FHM on Cold 20030126 'Smolens creates a marvellous atmosphere' -- Sunday Telegraph on Cold 20030126 'A mesmerising danse macabre' -- The Sunday Express on Cold 20030126 'COLD is a finely crafted, wild yarn set in the great north. John Smolens gives us a suspenseful tale in a style somewhere between Jack London and Raymond Chandler. A fine read' -- Jim Harrison, author of Legends of the Fall on Col 20030126 'A intriguing and exquisitely written conspiracy thriller' -- Irish Independent - Invisible World 20030214
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"An enthralling cat and mouse adventure." - FHM on Cold 'Smolens creates a marvellous atmosphere' - Sunday Telegraph on Cold 'A mesmerising danse macabre' - The Sunday Express on Cold 'COLD is a finely crafted, wild yarn set in the great north. John Smolens gives us a suspenseful tale in a style somewhere between Jack London and Raymond Chandler. A fine read' - Jim Harrison, author of Legends of the Fall on Cold
Sunday Telegraph on Cold
'Smolens creates a marvellous atmosphere'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Sunday Mirrior (on The Invisible World)
'A perfecty-paced thriller that gently pulls you in.'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Booklist (on The Invisible World)
'Achingly compelling'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Guardian - The Invisible World
'Smolens is excellent at physical detail, such as the crunch of the sand left in freshly cooked clams'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Boston Sunday Globe
'"The Invisible World" enriches us, and subtly provokes us, while providing chills and thrills.'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Sunday Telegraph - Invisible World
'Beautifully written and absorbing'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
FHM on Cold
"An enthralling cat and mouse adventure."
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
The Sunday Express on Cold
'A mesmerising danse macabre'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
The Invisible World Is a place of half-truths, mystery and deceit. It is a place locked in the subconscious mind where dreams and memories act as windows to the outside. And it harbours the deepest pain. Samuel Xavier Adams is all too familiar with The Invisible World. It's where he sees his sister who died from heroin addiction, and it's where he glimpses his recently deceased mother. It's also the place where the memories of his father are locked away, a father shrouded in mystery, a hunted man. Now that man is back, and has been seen in the chapel of rest where the ashes of Samuel's mother await his collection. When the ashes disappear, Samuel knows that his father has taken them - but why? He wants answers. Why has his father returned again and after such a long time, and what did he do that keeps him in constant hiding. Samuel wants answers. But time is running out, there are those that will kill to get to his father before he does.
About the Author
John Smolens is the author of two previous (US only) literary novels - one of which is currently under option for feature-film. He is currently the head of the MFA program at Northern Michigan University
Excerpted from Invisible World by John Smolens. Copyright © 2002. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
My mother died on the second Tuesday of October, at 3:14 p.m., to be exact. For the previous ten days she’d lain abed in the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. From her sixth-floor window I could look down Brookline Avenue toward Kenmore Square and the lights above Fenway Park. I took some solace in the fact that she died with such a view of the city, but the truth is the last day she was so out of it, she didn’t know where she was—the nurse called it last-stage dementia, as though it were some saving grace.
But I had my doubts. Can a seventy-five-year-old woman go from perfectly lucid to drooling stupefaction in less than twenty minutes? I asked the nurse what they had given my mother while I was down in the cafeteria. She said nothing. No painkillers? Nothing—nothing that would bring this on so quickly, so completely. The nurse, a beefy woman with a pink Irish face that almost undermined the steel of her blue eyes, fingered the cross around her neck and suggested that perhaps it was the hand of providence. We were standing out in the fluorescent white corridor, and I stared back at her until she left for her nurses’ station.
Petra Mouzakis was sitting on the long bench wedged between two laundry bins, listening to our conversation. She’d been there on the sixth floor all morning. I want to say lurking, but that would suggest that the woman tried to blend in, to conceal herself. That simply wasn’t the case. Petra was, like myself, a journalist, and she was the kind that rarely hides. To be fair, she was a working journalist; I was not—had hardly written a word in over a year.
Petra got up from the bench, swinging her sleek dark hair over one shoulder, and walked toward me. She wore black leggings beneath a loose white blouse that hung down over her hips. "Your mother had a visitor."
"When?"
"While you were down in the cafeteria."
"Who?"
"A man." Her large eyes were so dark they seemed incapable of admitting light, even the fluorescent kind. Something admirable in that. "I only caught a glimpse of him as I came out of the women’s room down the hall. I think it was your father."
"My father? We haven’t seen him in—in years. Are you sure?"
She touched the side of her head with a long hand and nodded. Her nails were green.
"You know what my father looks like?"
"That’s why I’ve been here," she said. "To ask your mother about him. She wanted to tell me things about him, but it was a slow process. She kept going back, skipping around in time. The sequence of events was jumbled."
"In my family they usually are."
"But she wanted to tell me. She wanted to get it out—at last, I think."
"Deathbed confession."
Petra glanced away, embarrassed, as she fingered the thin silver chain that hung about her graceful neck.
"That your brand of journalism?" I asked.
"You used to write for the Beacon. You know what it takes to get a story."
"The Boston Beacon I wrote for was a very different thing—it was a different time."
Something in her jaw shifted, firmed up. "I know, you wrote for the first Beacon—when it was this renegade alternative paper." Petra was in her late thirties, about ten years younger than I was—and this was starting to feel pointless.
"The paper should have stayed folded," I said. "Somebody bought the name and now it’s just a lightweight designer rag meant to give boomers flashbacks. Anybody who could really write went to the Globe. Or New York. Or Washington."
"Except you," she said.
"Maybe that’s because I can’t write."
"Maybe," she said, and now she looked me right in the eye. "Though I thought some of your stuff in the Beacon was better than that book of yours."
"You a writer or an editor?"
"It was a struggle to finish the book."
"Or maybe a critic?"
She folded her arms and said, "All right. I’ve been looking for your father for years—on and off."
"Have you? And why would you do that?"
"Probably for the same reasons you have," she said. I didn’t answer. I started to turn to go back into my mother’s room. "That’s what she told me," Petra said. "You’ve been looking for him for years—even when you didn’t know it, that’s what you’ve been doing. I think it hurt her that she couldn’t help you more. I think she was trying to protect you."
I didn’t turn around but said, "You’ve gotten all you’re going to get out of her." I entered the room and closed the door. Beyond my mother’s bed, the window framed a view of the Citgo sign above Kenmore Square and the lights of Fenway Park on a gray fall day.
But I had my doubts. Can a seventy-five-year-old woman go from perfectly lucid to drooling stupefaction in less than twenty minutes? I asked the nurse what they had given my mother while I was down in the cafeteria. She said nothing. No painkillers? Nothing—nothing that would bring this on so quickly, so completely. The nurse, a beefy woman with a pink Irish face that almost undermined the steel of her blue eyes, fingered the cross around her neck and suggested that perhaps it was the hand of providence. We were standing out in the fluorescent white corridor, and I stared back at her until she left for her nurses’ station.
Petra Mouzakis was sitting on the long bench wedged between two laundry bins, listening to our conversation. She’d been there on the sixth floor all morning. I want to say lurking, but that would suggest that the woman tried to blend in, to conceal herself. That simply wasn’t the case. Petra was, like myself, a journalist, and she was the kind that rarely hides. To be fair, she was a working journalist; I was not—had hardly written a word in over a year.
Petra got up from the bench, swinging her sleek dark hair over one shoulder, and walked toward me. She wore black leggings beneath a loose white blouse that hung down over her hips. "Your mother had a visitor."
"When?"
"While you were down in the cafeteria."
"Who?"
"A man." Her large eyes were so dark they seemed incapable of admitting light, even the fluorescent kind. Something admirable in that. "I only caught a glimpse of him as I came out of the women’s room down the hall. I think it was your father."
"My father? We haven’t seen him in—in years. Are you sure?"
She touched the side of her head with a long hand and nodded. Her nails were green.
"You know what my father looks like?"
"That’s why I’ve been here," she said. "To ask your mother about him. She wanted to tell me things about him, but it was a slow process. She kept going back, skipping around in time. The sequence of events was jumbled."
"In my family they usually are."
"But she wanted to tell me. She wanted to get it out—at last, I think."
"Deathbed confession."
Petra glanced away, embarrassed, as she fingered the thin silver chain that hung about her graceful neck.
"That your brand of journalism?" I asked.
"You used to write for the Beacon. You know what it takes to get a story."
"The Boston Beacon I wrote for was a very different thing—it was a different time."
Something in her jaw shifted, firmed up. "I know, you wrote for the first Beacon—when it was this renegade alternative paper." Petra was in her late thirties, about ten years younger than I was—and this was starting to feel pointless.
"The paper should have stayed folded," I said. "Somebody bought the name and now it’s just a lightweight designer rag meant to give boomers flashbacks. Anybody who could really write went to the Globe. Or New York. Or Washington."
"Except you," she said.
"Maybe that’s because I can’t write."
"Maybe," she said, and now she looked me right in the eye. "Though I thought some of your stuff in the Beacon was better than that book of yours."
"You a writer or an editor?"
"It was a struggle to finish the book."
"Or maybe a critic?"
She folded her arms and said, "All right. I’ve been looking for your father for years—on and off."
"Have you? And why would you do that?"
"Probably for the same reasons you have," she said. I didn’t answer. I started to turn to go back into my mother’s room. "That’s what she told me," Petra said. "You’ve been looking for him for years—even when you didn’t know it, that’s what you’ve been doing. I think it hurt her that she couldn’t help you more. I think she was trying to protect you."
I didn’t turn around but said, "You’ve gotten all you’re going to get out of her." I entered the room and closed the door. Beyond my mother’s bed, the window framed a view of the Citgo sign above Kenmore Square and the lights of Fenway Park on a gray fall day.
