The Marriage of Sticks
by Jonathan Carroll | Literature & Fiction | This book has not been rated.
ISBN: 0312872437 Global Overview for this book
ISBN: 0312872437 Global Overview for this book
This book is in a Controlled Release!
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With his latest horror fantasy novel, Jonathan Carroll has proven himself both a master artisan and something of a trickster -- for The Marriage of Sticks is a beautiful love story wrapped in a nearly invisible blanket of horror. Carroll's gradual unfolding of the blanket is done with tremendous skill and subtlety so that it seems as if the terror has hit all at once when it's actually been building in a chilling crescendo. The end result is one of the most imaginative and unsettling stories ever written, where the terrors are many and ever-present, yet embedded in the everyday fabric of life in such a way as to make them seem almost ordinary.
It begins with Miranda Romanec, a 30-something woman with a successful business as a collector of rare books but a sense of drifting aimlessness about her life. Miranda decides to attend a high school reunion, where she hopes to run into her onetime sweetheart, the one she thinks never should have gotten away. On the way there, while riding in a taxi on a crowded L.A. freeway, Miranda is unsettled by a peculiar sight: an old woman sitting along the shoulder of the freeway in a wheelchair. The image of the woman haunts Miranda but eventually fades in significance when she learns something far more shocking while at her reunion.
After the reunion, Miranda returns to her everyday life, though things take an unexpected turn when she meets two new people. The first is a fellow collector, Hugh Oakley, a handsome, fun-loving, and passionate man who would seem to be Miranda's soul mate. But there is one problem: Hugh is married to a beautiful woman and has two children. The second person is Frances Hatch, a 90-year-old woman who has led an amazing life and wants to tell someone about it before she dies.
Miranda and Frances quickly become friends while Miranda and Hugh become lovers. For a while, Miranda fears her relationship with Hugh is doomed because of his marriage, but after riding out several threatening waves, Hugh finally makes the decision to leave his wife. He and Miranda move into a lovely house in upstate New York -- a gift from Frances, who lived there at one time herself. But just when Miranda thinks life is as good as it can possibly get, fate takes the upper hand. Miranda quickly learns that Frances gave her the house for a reason and that the two women share a dark and bitter secret -- a secret that blurs the lines between life and death and deals with karma, reincarnation, and atonement. For Miranda, the truly crushing horror is the burden of her own accountability. And her only hope for salvation involves making the ultimate sacrifice.
It's not difficult to see why Jonathan Carroll won the World Fantasy Award for his previous work. From the bittersweet meaning behind the "marriage of sticks" to the extraordinary power and horror of personal responsibility, this book carries hard-hitting emotions and powerful themes of morality, honesty, and accountability. The story is, at turns, a tragic and compelling love story and an evolving revelation of personal horror -- one that will make readers sit back and examine their own lives with a far more jaundiced eye. (Barnes & Noble review)
New purchase. Trade paperback. May remain in the permanent collection.
It begins with Miranda Romanec, a 30-something woman with a successful business as a collector of rare books but a sense of drifting aimlessness about her life. Miranda decides to attend a high school reunion, where she hopes to run into her onetime sweetheart, the one she thinks never should have gotten away. On the way there, while riding in a taxi on a crowded L.A. freeway, Miranda is unsettled by a peculiar sight: an old woman sitting along the shoulder of the freeway in a wheelchair. The image of the woman haunts Miranda but eventually fades in significance when she learns something far more shocking while at her reunion.
After the reunion, Miranda returns to her everyday life, though things take an unexpected turn when she meets two new people. The first is a fellow collector, Hugh Oakley, a handsome, fun-loving, and passionate man who would seem to be Miranda's soul mate. But there is one problem: Hugh is married to a beautiful woman and has two children. The second person is Frances Hatch, a 90-year-old woman who has led an amazing life and wants to tell someone about it before she dies.
Miranda and Frances quickly become friends while Miranda and Hugh become lovers. For a while, Miranda fears her relationship with Hugh is doomed because of his marriage, but after riding out several threatening waves, Hugh finally makes the decision to leave his wife. He and Miranda move into a lovely house in upstate New York -- a gift from Frances, who lived there at one time herself. But just when Miranda thinks life is as good as it can possibly get, fate takes the upper hand. Miranda quickly learns that Frances gave her the house for a reason and that the two women share a dark and bitter secret -- a secret that blurs the lines between life and death and deals with karma, reincarnation, and atonement. For Miranda, the truly crushing horror is the burden of her own accountability. And her only hope for salvation involves making the ultimate sacrifice.
It's not difficult to see why Jonathan Carroll won the World Fantasy Award for his previous work. From the bittersweet meaning behind the "marriage of sticks" to the extraordinary power and horror of personal responsibility, this book carries hard-hitting emotions and powerful themes of morality, honesty, and accountability. The story is, at turns, a tragic and compelling love story and an evolving revelation of personal horror -- one that will make readers sit back and examine their own lives with a far more jaundiced eye. (Barnes & Noble review)
New purchase. Trade paperback. May remain in the permanent collection.
Miranda Romanae is a successful thirtysomething woman in today's modern word, yet she feels alone and adrift on the sea of her life. At her high school reunion she makes a shattering discovery that further undermines her already shaky sense of who she is and where she is going. When she meets the remarkable Hugh Oakley, her life takes a 180-degree turn for the better -- but at what price?
When they move to a house in the country to start a new life together, the reality Miranda had once known begins to slip away. Miranda is haunted by alarming, impossible visions and strangers whom she feels certain she has known, although they are all from other times and places. As these phantom lives consume her own and begin to affect all that she knows and loves, Miranda must learn the truth to reclaim it. But sometimes the hardest truth to accept is the knowledge of who we really are. (cover blurb)
Jonathan Carroll's novel of love and loss and memory and life is wonderfully told for the first 200 pages, with his trademark strangeness tiptoeing in bit by bit by bit. I thoroughly enjoyed Miranda's story until I turned that one page and suddenly found myself in an entirely different novel...and one I didn't care for at all. The break was so abrupt, so jarring, it took me completely out of the story...and the big twist as revealed in these last 70 pages was an overdone plot device and a tremendous disappointment.
Despite this major shortcoming, several of the characters Carroll has created are simply marvelous. I loved Frances, the old woman who leads Miranda to her truth. I really liked James, the high school boyfriend, until the point he turned into a whiny git and blamed Miranda for his poor choices. Hugh was interesting but not sympathetic. And given how the story turned out, I'm rather conflicted about Miranda herself...in a way that's impossible to discuss without spoilers.
Don't get me wrong: The Marriage of Sticks is not a bad novel, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone. It's just this particular tired plot twist is one that sets my teeth on edge, and I'm dismayed that he employed it. I suppose if this had been my first Carroll novel I wouldn't have been so disappointed.
When they move to a house in the country to start a new life together, the reality Miranda had once known begins to slip away. Miranda is haunted by alarming, impossible visions and strangers whom she feels certain she has known, although they are all from other times and places. As these phantom lives consume her own and begin to affect all that she knows and loves, Miranda must learn the truth to reclaim it. But sometimes the hardest truth to accept is the knowledge of who we really are. (cover blurb)
Jonathan Carroll's novel of love and loss and memory and life is wonderfully told for the first 200 pages, with his trademark strangeness tiptoeing in bit by bit by bit. I thoroughly enjoyed Miranda's story until I turned that one page and suddenly found myself in an entirely different novel...and one I didn't care for at all. The break was so abrupt, so jarring, it took me completely out of the story...and the big twist as revealed in these last 70 pages was an overdone plot device and a tremendous disappointment.
Despite this major shortcoming, several of the characters Carroll has created are simply marvelous. I loved Frances, the old woman who leads Miranda to her truth. I really liked James, the high school boyfriend, until the point he turned into a whiny git and blamed Miranda for his poor choices. Hugh was interesting but not sympathetic. And given how the story turned out, I'm rather conflicted about Miranda herself...in a way that's impossible to discuss without spoilers.
Don't get me wrong: The Marriage of Sticks is not a bad novel, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone. It's just this particular tired plot twist is one that sets my teeth on edge, and I'm dismayed that he employed it. I suppose if this had been my first Carroll novel I wouldn't have been so disappointed.
On the exchange shelf at my office.
