Monday, September 29, 2008

The Snow Garden by Christopher Rice

Son of the bewitching Anne Rice, the author follows his first novel, A Density of Souls, with a second that is just as rife with murder, fear, madness, and homoeroticism. Unfortunately, it is also a histrionic hodgepodge, all set on a snowbound college campus in the Northeast. Respected Atherton University professor Eric Eberman seems devastated when his wife, Lisa, drives her Volvo into the icy Atherton River and drowns. Was it a drunken accident or suicide? This question and many more erupt into scandal when the small university town discovers that Professor Eberman has been sleeping with one of his male students, Randall Stone. Randall comes to suspect that Lisa's death was not accidental, and subsequently he and his tightly knit group of college friends go through tremendous amounts of angst, haunted by sexual desires and obscure fears and just generally all worked up.

Yeah, I dunno hey. It all get's a little bit more entertaining towards the end ... although it still ends up feeling like a plot which is trying to be too much, to tell too many stories and which ends up not doing justice to any of them. Essentially it just didn't end up believable ... are there really that many messed up people living is such a confined space?! I dunno, it ended up being about as believable as Season of the Witch for me ... (which is not very!)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh that's sad. I'd rather have liked to read this.

I finished "We need to talk about Kevin" over the weekend, I got it because I saw it on your reccomended reads, and oh boy. What a book!

phillygirl said...

@jane - yeah was sadly disappointing. Oooh, Kevin is an absolutely brilliant book! But hectic hey? Talk about a contraceptive ;)

Anonymous said...

Definitely. As I read it I thought to myself; "Maybe I am one of the people that are just not cut out to be a parent."
And then I got *so* angry with the Father. How some people could be so blind.

Anonymous said...

OH BTW If you ever read Joe Hill's Heart Shaped Box (Stephen King's son) I'd love to know how it was. I can't imagine what it must be to live up to the expectation. And I am curious to know if he inherited the talent. That is, if you like Stephen King.

phillygirl said...

@jane - Ooh, I'm not a huge Stephen King fan (except for his less fantasy-type stories, like Dolores Claiborne) but will ask my dad ... he owns like every Stephen King book ever!

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