Customer Reviews

Absent Friends

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

S.J. Rozan is best known as a mystery writer, having garnered just about every award possible for her traditional mystery series featuring the unlikely P.I. team of Bill Smith and Lydia Chin. ABSENT FRIENDS is not part of this series but is instead a stand-alone book, in every sense of the word. It is funny, tender, romantic, sad, hopeful and tragic, often within the same paragraph. It goes beyond the premise of great literature, that good people can do bad things and bad people can do good; rather, it explores that area where good works, no matter how nobly or well-intended, result in tragedy. It is also one of the best books from any genre that I have read this year.

James McCaffery, the protagonist of ABSENT FRIENDS, is dead as the novel commences. Jim is one of New York City's bravest, a fire captain who loses his life during a rescue mission in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks upon the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. He is initially spotlighted in a newspaper article as a hero, one whose motto was "first in, last out" and who lived that motto right up until the moment when he drew his last breath.

Harry Randall, a reporter whose best stories are years behind him, stumbles across a lead that causes him to believe that McCaffery may have been involved in a criminal enterprise with a known mobster, a man he had known since childhood. The story, implausible as it seems to the shell-shocked citizenry, is given a bizarre credence when Randall is found dead, the victim of an apparent but suspicious suicide.

The story is picked up by Laura Stone, Randall's protégé and lover, who is determined to not only unravel the mystery of Randall's sudden death, but also to finish the story he was working on. Rozan tells the story from several viewpoints, moving back and forth in time as she describes McCaffery and the circle of friends he had kept since childhood, friends whom he had loved and protected in life and who attempt in turn to protect him in death.

Rozan is perfect here, creating an atmosphere of foreboding, of doom, almost from the first sentence, even though it begins with an account of childhood joy and discovery. The atmospheric tension is sustained throughout and is so strong that one is almost afraid to turn the page, to discover what is to be revealed. That it will end badly is a foregone conclusion, if subtlety so; the only question is one of degree.

ABSENT FRIENDS is one of those rare novels that transcends the limitations of a genre and stands on its own as a novel for the ages. This is a story that, once read, will not be forgotten. Highly recommended.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

This book what a wonderul look at friendship, mistakes and truth. In the beginning of the book, I wanted to find out the truth just as much as reporter Laura. In the end, I felt the same as she did : empty & sad. The truth does not always set you free.

I loved the setting of this book, a few weeks after September 11, in New York City. Although the events of that day have nothing to do per se with the events, it does set them in motion. It's my first book by this author and I was left marvelling at the beautiful prose, the wordly expressions and the images it all brought up for me.

This book deserves a lot more press then it has had so far. Pick it up, you won't regret it.

NYC firefighter Captain James McCaffrey is one of the fallen heroes who died trying to save lives during the tragic collapse of the Twin Towers. James had a heroic history with the department before his death; however reporter Harry Randall paints a darker side of the fallen hero. He insists that two decades ago 9/11, James and his six Staten Island compatriots were involved and probably killed a stepson of a mob kingpin; one of them Mark went to prison.

The four survivors of the magnificent seven, two including Mark having died years ago, rally to protect their deceased childhood leader's reputation. The final foursome look back at what happened, but soon begin to wonder why James consistently and anonymously gave money to the family of Mark. Could James be paying off blackmail, guilt or could he be simply taking care of a friend?

The multiple perspectives, which include flashbacks and the thoughts when alive of individuals now dead, adds complexity, but makes it difficult to keep track of who thinks what of James. Still the backdrop of the aftermath of 9/11 on the City provides a fantastic thriller as the James-Mark relationship is shown up as a minor nothingness in comparison to the humongous tragedy. S.J. Rozan keeps the two outlooks apart so that the audience admires a heroic fallen first responder in a city reeling but already beginning to recover by 9/12. His allegedly dark past seems minuscule with his actions when people needed him. This is a strong look at the immediate post 9/11 Manhattan.

Harriet Klausner

I wanted to like this novel. Having never read one of Rozan's novels before, I did not know what to expect. What I found was a confusing mess of alternating viewpoints, unlikeable characters, and long-winded flashbacks which did nothing other than add pages to an already lengthy book. I gave up reading 3/4 of the way through--I just found myself getting annoyed with the pace and alternating narratives. Too bad, because the subject should have inspired an amazing story.

I haven't read the Lehane book that ABSENT FRIENDS is often weighed against or the author's preceding PI series, so I had no pre-defined notion about what this book may, or should, be. While reading, my sense was that the author considered it fundamentally necessary to write about September 11, 2001 and its aftermath -- and drew a perceptive and thought provoking story from within that framework. Ms. Rozan's quiet, eloquent prose must be evocative of what she was feeling -- of what each New Yorker was feeling -- but placed in each character's observations following the attack that, in a poignant sense, encompassed the entire city. This book has an empathetic sensitivity about it, and I can imagine that if you are not predisposed toward that portion of the emotional continuum you may not see the book this way.

ABSENT FRIENDS has been described as a mystery and a thriller, but after reading it, it seems more like a crime novel to me. Ms. Rozan's story is about the life of a heroic FDNY firefighter who died on September 11 and whether activities he may have been involved in earlier in his life should diminish that aura. The book's voice is of profound sorrow and reemerging hope. The narrative has three compelling protagonists: truth, friendship and heroism. How they are served is the backbone of the story; how well they endured is for each of us to resolve for ourselves. Should an individual incident matter more than the whole of a life? Each of us could have a different take on that.

This book was not an easy read -- it took me three or four times longer than it normally would. Each time I put it down I had trouble picking it up again. The story has a tangible dread about it, both for how can the city's population cope, and the wish for the story not to end the way that you are sure that it will. I was confused for about the first quarter of ABSENT FRIENDS because the point of view keeps changing between three people in the present and a narration, set in the past, about the group of seven friends. The early part of the book is also the location of much of the most intense emotional content related to the attacks on the twin towers. But gradually the story comes into focus, the pervasive numbness levels out and the shifting viewpoint becomes normal. I cared about these people, even the 'bad' ones. I wanted to call them on the phone and tell them the things they didn't know, particularly with one very special discovery at the end.

This book took me into the heart and mind of unbearable emotions and incredible determination. I was skillfully drawn in, carried along, and very deeply moved. It was all worth my early struggle to understand the flow of the book. I'd give ABSENT FRIENDS a ten if I could. What a tour-de-force!

I now need to start on Ms. Rozan's backlist.

This is one of those books I really hoped to like. I enjoy S.J.Rozan, and firmly agree with the assessment that's been made of her Lydia Chin/Bill Smith books: she's the best-kept secret in mystery fiction today. This book is Rozan's attempt to emulate Dennis Lehane's Mystic River, which transformed him from a series detective writer to a serious, acclaimed novelist sans genre. Unfortunately, Absent Friends isn't quite as good as Mystic River.

The book's built around the 9/11 attacks on New York City, which loom in the background of the story the whole way through. One of the firefighters killed in the collapse of the towers is a famous firefighter, already a hero. In the aftermath of his death, one of the local papers decides to do a story about him, and uncovers the death of a friend, which is surrounded by circumstances that are curious, to say the least. When the reporter investigating the story dies under mysterious circumstances, his lover, also a reporter, takes up the cause of finding out what was going on, and who was involved.

While the book's characters are interesting, and the atmosphere is palpable, there are some things about the story that don't work that well. For one thing, with a book like this character development is crucial, and while it seems strange to say, 367 pages isn't enough room to do what you sense the author wanted to do. This is the sort of plot, and characters, that normally involve a 600 page novel. Another problem is that the ending is rather predictable. A third is that there isn't really a protagonist. While I tend to not mind the different points of view thing, it's a bit much here, with four plot threads twisting across one another.

I enjoyed Rozan's other books, and I gather that she's going to do other non-Chin/Smith books. I hope the next one's more up to her standards.

Not as much a mystery as a character study, it vacillates between multiple characters and two time periods, which I found tiring and a bit confusing. Rozen's depiction of 9/11 and its aftermath are remarkable and sad, and the characters are a reflection of that. However, I found the end very unsatisfying. Parts of the book are very well done and, as Ms. Rosen is a resident of NYC, I certainly understand its impetus. But personally, I'll admit I am anxious for the return of Bill and Lydia.

The comment in the Amazon review that this novel is primarily a character study is dead on. I found the personalities and interplay among the main characters interesting, but do not view the events of the story as significant enough to warrant the term "tragedy" in the classic literary sense. Rather than being tragic, the tale of Jimmy and his childhood pals feels like an inexorable march to a doomed fate, with one misunderstanding piled upon another until none of the characters has a clear picture of what is actually taking place in the story.

And while I don't want to give away the end of the story, I will say that I found it depressing in that everyone ends up alone and unhappy, and what's worse, neither the characters nor the reader has much idea why, or what any of the characters might have done to change things. Perhaps that's exactly the point that Rozan is trying to make -- that our lives are pretty much determined from the time we're born and that we're prisoners of genetics. If that's the case, I'll pass on her philosophy.

Certainly the events of 9/11 were tragic, but this book is about much more than the terrorist attack. As a New Yorker, I have first-hand experience of the attack and its aftermath, and understand how 9/11 underlies all of what most of us do each day. Nevertheless, Rozan fails to convince me that the actions of her characters are driven by the events of 9/11 or that they are responding to events in their daily lives in any way differently than they would had the attack never taken place.

This novel is worth reading, but wait until it comes out in paperback and is less expensive.

I can't begrudge award-winning mystery-novelist and life-long New Yorker, S. J. Rozan, finding it necessary to write this novel in order to cope with her feelings about 9-11, but I do begrudge her deciding to publish it and thus forcing this fan of hers to slog through it. Having literally devoured everything else she has written, I expected to be drawn in and deeply moved. Instead I felt like I'd been forced to endure somebody else's therapy sessions, somebody who won't be getting better anytime soon.

To begin with there is the problem of narrative point of view (or points of view). Rozan is justly famous for the alternating character points of view in her Lydia Chin/Bill Smith mysteries. One novel (or story) will be told from Lydia's point of view -- the next, from Bill's. Rozan appears equally sure-handed in either persona, and the contrast between the rebellious but wannabe dutiful Chinese daughter trying to realize her dream without totally alienating her disapproving family and the world-weary, cynical, failure in every relationship with a female trying not to blow his last possible shot at happiness makes for a fascinating mix that has the reader rooting for these two to work it out in the end.

Unfortunately her mastery at this has tempted her to try something a lot harder so that in "Absent Friends" we get FOUR alternating character points of view, that race back and forth through events spanning nearly 40 years. The result is confusion, annoyance, and by the end the suspicion that the reader has just been subjected to 367 pages of "showing off".

It doesn't help that there isn't a likable character in the book. Of the three living POV characters, one is a humorless harridan avenging her dead colleague/lover and giving investigative journalism a black eye in the process, one is a snooty do-gooder who salves the hole in her heart by looking down her nose at others and bedding boy toys in a series of one night stands, and one is a sleazy defense attorney whose childhood anti-Semitic abuse induced chip-on-the-shoulder separates him from the woman and child that he loves. For most of the book the dead characters: the feet-of-clay fireman hero with the dark secret who provides the fourth POV and the Front Page refugee and suspicion-raising alleged suicide are the only ones the reader can work up much affection for, but by the time all the tragedies have run their course and all the secrets have been revealed, there isn't much to like about them either, especially since their personal cowardice turns out to be the cause of so much of it. There certainly isn't much to like about the rest of the group of childhood friends, living or dead, whose selfishness and slowly unraveling secrets end up (unintentionally) destroying so many lives. In fact one wonders whether to be grateful or disappointed that the novel ends a chapter or two before you might expect, since there would appear to about five guilt-induced suicides and one murder in the offing after this debacle.

Speaking of which, this story turns out to be something of an ANTI-mystery. The characters who don't know the deep, dark secret at the center keep expecting to find some sort of all-encompassing conspiracy. Instead they find unconnected accidents and things that turn out to be exactly what they seemed to be at first, but several more lives are ruined in pointless tragedy before they've finished convincing themselves. If this happened in real life you could blame Fate or God's Will or Chance, but in a novel there is no one to blame but the author. It's one thing to show how bad results, even to innocent bystanders, flow from bad choices. It's quite another to show neutral or even noble choices resulting in horrific tragedy due to fate or bad luck or (in reality) the whim of the author. If the reader begrudgingly develops any affection at all for these characters, it will be based on sympathy arising out of the growing certainty that they've been given a raw deal, that they've been "punished" all out of proportion to their "crimes".

Unlike Real Life a novel is expected to make some sort of sense, to have some sort of point. Poignant anecdotes about the ripples left behind by 9-11 have their place in a history but ring false when manufactured for a work of fiction, particularly when there are more and better true stories. It's like ignoring the heartrending true stories from the sinking of the Titanic in favor of some cheap (or in this case expensive) made-up Hollywood melodrama.

Moreover unlike the sinking of the Titanic, the Galveston Hurricane, the Johnstown Flood or some other natural or man-made disaster, 9-11 was not some "tragedy" that swept up the guilty and the innocent alike. Like Pearl Harbor before it, 9-11 was a conscious, deliberate act of war committed by dedicated enemies who had been plotting their evil for decades. In this novel S. J. Rozan appears to be trying to obscure this in order to cast 9-11 as some terribly unfair "accident", just a larger example of the many terribly unfair accidents that destroy the lives of her characters. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Hopefully having worked this out of her system, S. J. Rozan can get back to doing what she does best, writing intricate and deeply moving mystery novels that always, always, ALWAYS have a point.