Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dead Man Talking, 14 Aug 2008
Roger Jon Ellory made his big breakthrough in 2007 with A Quiet Belief in Angels which has gone on to become one of the best-selling books in the nation. There's a lot more to this Brummie lad than just that one novel though, and most people going through his back-catalogue as a response to his blockbuster success are finding that his outstanding writing skills are evident here in his debut, which again spans most of the lifetime of a single man in the south-eastern USA through the 1950s, 1960s and beyond. It is altogether different in its style, however, and in the emotions it engenders in its readers.
Most stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. This one is a curiosity because in effect the reader knows the end before opening the first page; 36-year-old Daniel Ford is on death row in a South Carolina prison, having been tried and found guilty of the murder of his best friend some twelve years earlier. For most of the tale, then, the key questions are how, where, and above all why did he kill Nathan Verney? A singular oddity for me was that the story is told from a first-person perspective, making me constantly wonder how a dead man could be recounting the events of his life between 1952 - when at 6 years old he met Nathan - and 1982, with just a few hours to go before going to the electric chair. It turns out that although the end appears to be almost a foregone conclusion, the telling of that end is vivid, powerful and consummately makes up for the relatively genteel nature of most that had gone before, prior to Daniel's arrest around Christmas of 1969. Ellory succeeds in making you feel what it must be like to be weeks, days and finally just hours away from death.
While some of the political backdrops are too long drawn out in detail, there is no question that politics and racial prejudice lie right at the heart of the tale. Most relevant of all is the Vietnam conflict, and how Daniel and Nathan face up to the probability of being drafted into a war they both have no desire to be involved in. The other key issue is that Nathan is black, and in a part of the country with strong associations with the Ku Klux Klan, he faces harmful consequences when he simply goes out to a bar with his white friend, and takes even higher risks by having a white girlfriend - especially one with a father reputed to be a Klan king-pin. Yet another political topic central to all that goes on is the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy, and when all is said and done at the conclusion, it becomes apparent that all of the main characters, including Daniel's girlfriends, and most if not all of the political narrative are absolutely relevant to the story as a whole, even if some of the people and background events seem to have no bearing at the time of their mention.
The prose will be regarded as merely average by anyone who has read Ellory's most recent work, but the imagery of both the tranquillity of Greenleaf South Carolina, and the intimidating inmates and warders on death row make for gripping reading. There are, throughout this tale, emotive portrayals of love, lust, envy, betrayal, guilt, fear, joy, anger and utter hopelessness. For those familiar with Ellory's other novels this one does take a while before it really takes hold, and patience might be needed at times, but the pay-off is absolute and uncompromising, with an ending that few others can hope to match. Ultimately an intense, moving and memorable story.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb Debut!, 7 Sep 2005
I absolutley loved this book, which kept me gripped all the way though to the stunning climax. A story which deals with the lives of two friends, one black, one white, growing up in a America in the 60's and 70's. Clearly this subject has to be handled artfully, and Ellory delivers. The story starts with an introduction to the main chararecter who is on death row for the murder of his best friend. It then procceds to take us though the fast paced story that preceeded the main characters' incarceration. I wont elaborate on the story further but what I will say is that ellory is cleary a master in creating characters with real depth and feeling. His description of the characters thoughts show that ellory must have a real understanding of people. I loved this book, and raced though it. This is a stunning debut, Ellory is a wonderful new talent deserving recognition. Im off to read his other two books!
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Enthralling from start to finish!, 3 Aug 2008
'Four times I've been betrayed - twice by women, once by a better friend than any man might wish for, and lastly by a nation..'
36 year old Daniel Ford, a convicted murderer is on death row for the murder of his best friend Nathan. With thirty six days before he faces the electric chair, piece by piece he relates his lifestory to the Prison Chaplin Father Rousseau. His story starts in rural North Carolina when in 1952, at six years old he meets Nathan. The two boys (one born white the other black) become best friends, their friendship lasting until Nathan's brutal murder 20 years later.
I really loved this. It was enthralling, with well drawn characters and covered the history of the period, the racism, political corruption and deaths of Martin Luther King and Kennedy in an informative way without being boring.
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