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Title: Boy Still Missing by John Searles ISBN: 0-06-000780-X Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 05 March, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.53 (34 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A BRILLIANT DEBUT NOVEL BY A BORN STORY-TELLER
Comment: 'If only I could have stopped the most important person in my life from dying . . . alone.' Thus speaks the protagonist of Boy Still Missing, a stunning debut novel by John Searles, the senior books editor at Cosmopolitan magazine. By becoming infatuated with Edie Kramer, his father's seductive mistress, Dominick Pindle, 15, initiates (continues?) a chain of events that ends in tragedy. The time is 1972. On his 16th birthday, Dominick is holed up in a Holedo, Mass., motel. Having stolen thousands of dollars and kidnapped a baby, he finds himself surrounded by police who demand his surrender. Strangely enough, this teenager is not a monster. As Dominick tells his tale, one begins to pull for him and hope against hope that he can find redemption. As I read this novel, two thoughts kept recurring: 'He is more sinned against than sinning' and 'We have met the enemy and he is us!' Who is responsible for the blame and shame that hovers around Dominick like a dark cloud? For centuries, philosophers have debated the problem of determinism vs. free will. Are we inextricably trapped in the inexorable causality of fate? Or are we, by our choices (and by random chance) forging our own character and, hence, our own destiny? Dominick Pindle finds himself in a tangled web woven by his own bad decisions and by the bad decisions of countless others--his contemporaries and his long-deceased ancestors. Critics have compared Boy Still Missing to J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye (1951). Like Holden Caulfield, Dominick Pindle experiences 'rites of passage' from adolescent to adulthood. Searles's coming-of-age tale, however, is superior to Salinger's, and Dominick Pindle has far more 'soul' or 'spirit' than does Holden Caulfield. Beautifully written, Boy Still Missing is replete with striking descriptions, analogies, and metaphors. The dialogue is superb. The best news is that Boy Still Missing is a page-turning, captivating story. Searles will make you angry and make you cheer. He will tease you with hope and taunt you with despair. He will make you laugh and make you cry. He will lift your spirit and break your heart. He will take you on a roller-coaster ride that you will not soon forget.
Rating: 5
Summary: "Don't Let It Happen To You"
Comment: If you haven't read this book yet, you don't know what you're missing. Don't let it happen to you. If you're an avid book reader, like myself, you know you'll find maybe one book out of ten that really is special, and this book has got to be one of my favorite so far this year. It's beautifully written and a pleasure to read. John Searles is a real wordsmith. I was familiar with Searles writing from other publications, like Out, and other magazines, so I was very excited when he new debut novel was published. I wasn't disappointed. Here is a story that will keep you up at night till you're on the last page.
The story takes place in 1971. It tells the story of Dominick Pindle, a fifteen-year- old boy, who lives in Holedo, Massachusetts with his parents, who seem like a normal couple but really hold a lot of personal secrets. Dominick's father tends to drink a lot. Often Dominick and his mother must find him and drag him out of bars. His father has a mistress named Edie, who Dominick meets one night while searching for his father, and Dominick himself begins an affair with her. Dominick ends of loaning her lots of money that belongs to his mother, causing even more problems. Dominick finds out his mother was saving the money for an abortion of her own. She was having an affair, too, with Town Sheriff Roget. Dominick's mother not being able to afford a safe illegal abortion ends of bleeding to death in a motel room trying to terminate the pregnancy herself, with someone else's help. Who helps her, then deserts her is a real surprise. It turns out that Edie, the father's mistress, is pregnant, too, and the baby belongs to Dominick's father. There are so many plot twists in this story it's more than enough to fill two books. As the plot moves along very rapidly with more and more twists, we find Dominick with his new girlfriend, Jeanny, holed up in the same motel room his mother died in, with Edie's baby, who is Dominick's sister. There they are surrounded by the police, in a stand-off, that continues with more plot twists till the book comes to it's powerful conclusion. What a story!
Once in a while you find a new author that's really exciting and a powerful writer. John Searles is just that and more. I've got a strong feeling this will become a movie someday soon. I certainly look forward to reading and reviewing John's next book. Bravo!
Rating: 4
Summary: Good for debut....
Comment: I really loved this book but at the same time I was a little disappointed. I felt it could have been a little less loosely written. It was meaty but was missing the potatoes in some parts!
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Title: A Crime in the Neighborhood by Suzanne Berne ISBN: 0805055800 Publisher: Owl Publishing Company Pub. Date: 01 July, 1998 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Swimming by Joanna Hershon ISBN: 0345442768 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 25 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Family History by Dani Shapiro ISBN: 0375415475 Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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Title: Things Unspoken by Anitra Sheen ISBN: 0811831574 Publisher: Chronicle Books Pub. Date: April, 2001 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Breathing Water by T. Greenwood ISBN: 0312262892 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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