Based on the authors real-life relationship with a convicted murderer, this gripping first novel delves with subtlety and nuance--rather than violence and sensationalism--into the mind of a serial killer.
An Absolute Gentleman: A Novel (Counterpoint)
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
You may never look quite the same way at that punctilious little man down the street after reading this chilling first novel from Kinder, author of two well-received short story collections (A Near-Perfect Gift and Sweet Angel Band). Inspired by her own brush with a serial killer—back in the late '80s her neighbor Robert Weeks was sentenced to life in prison for two murders and suspected of more—Kinder deftly limns the deadly odyssey of Arthur Blume, a middle-aged creative writing professor who manages to be both the most ordinary and the most monstrous of creatures. The well-paced action cuts between Blume's Missouri present and horrific past in Georgia as the child of a psychotic teenage mother (which forms his view of treachery as the natural order and women as innately deceptive). Along the way, his slyly dropped clues—or are they red herrings?—add to the intrigue. Though one wishes that Kinder had gone lighter on some of the Southern-fried Freud, this artfully told tale of psychological suspense is as gripping as the spider webs Blume is so fond of studying. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Inspired by her own brush with a serial killer, Kinder has created a fictional representation that is chilling in its normalcy, haunting in its intensity, and stunning in its portrayal of sheer, sadistic madness. Taciturn English professor Arthur Blume launches his narrative by boldly stating that he is believed to have murdered as many as 17 women. Yet what most outrages him, now that he has been incarcerated, is that journalists are depicting him as a monster. He pens a memoir to correct this impression. In it, he describes in lavish detail the outfitting of his newly rented rooms in the small university town of Mason, Missouri; demurs over particulars of his illicit love affair with a fellow professor; and shares self-deprecating anecdotes about his gallant championing of a maligned colleague. Tucked among these decorous tidbits, however, are tantalizing clues to the demon within, one Kinder allows to emerge as stealthily as a cobra sliding from its bamboo basket. The addition of a self-explanatory epilogue regarding her personal experience detracts only slightly from Kinder's otherwise spellbinding debut novel, a pitch-perfect rendition of the cunning malevolence that can lie hidden beneath the guise of refined civility. Haggas, Carol
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"I intended no one any harm.",
By
This review is from: An Absolute Gentleman: A Novel (Counterpoint) (Paperback)
R. M. Kinder explains in her afterword why she wrote "An Absolute Gentleman," a novel about a serial killer who is "well read, with old-world charm, intelligence, a good education, and nice outward form." It seems that an acquaintance of hers named Robert Weeks was just such an individual. She wanted to tell the story of an ordinary person who is actually a monster "to help explain the human condition, the paradox between the good neighbor and his evil acts."
"I was just an aging, bald man, willing to get along with everyone," says the narrator, Arthur J. Blume. Paradoxically, he "can care about someone and then kill them." In a series of flashbacks, Kinder fills in the back story that describes how the banal and courtly Blume became so twisted. His psychotic single mother, Mary, brought him up in a Georgia farmhouse during the 1940s. Mary's occasional moments of lucidity were offset by her frequent delusions. Fortunately, she had enough money from an inheritance to support herself and her son, although she relied on her good-hearted neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Sutton, to frequently step in and lend a hand. Mary had been abused as a child and she continues the pattern with Arthur. Although she does not strike him, she shuts him up in a closet (with a supply of food) for days on end and "touches" him inappropriately. By the age of ten, the neglected boy has been forced to become self-sufficient, having learned to cook, clean, and sew out of necessity. Arthur realizes early on that he cannot rely on his erratic mother for sustenance and support. The chapters about the protagonist's early life alternate with those that take place in Missouri in the 1990s. At the age of fifty, Arthur moves to Mason, where he has been offered a job teaching creative writing to college students. He has published one novel, but so far, there are no takers for his second book, "Ghosts." As he settles into his position, he makes some new acquaintances, including the eccentric Nada, a seventy-three year old perpetual student and aspiring writer, Grace, an attractive professor who appears to have designs on him, and Margaret, the formidable and nasty English department secretary. This is one of the most chilling books of the year, mostly because Arthur takes great pains to hide his underlying nature. He is polite and solicitous and gives no indication that he is capable of sudden and inexplicable acts of violence. The reader gets little hints along the way that Arthur wears a mask behind which he cleverly conceals the ugliness and rot festering in his psyche. For example, he loves to cite examples from nature documentaries about animals that do monstrous things to their young. He concludes one of these passages by saying, "The natural world is no place for any creature but there's no place else to go." Kinder also clues us in to Arthur's mental illness by describing the ways in which, as a child, he tortured and killed small animals. The author's understated and vivid writing style is pitch-perfect. Her words are all the more terrifying because so many of the terrible incidents in the book are alluded to obliquely rather than spelled out in grotesque detail. Imagined terrors are generally more frightening than explicit ones. Kinder heightens our discomfort by making us sympathize with this fiend in the guise of a man. There but for grace of decent parenting and good genes goes any one of us, she implies. Arthur J. Blume doesn't consider himself an aberration, just a victim of circumstances. He poignantly states, "I like people. We're all caught in the same maelstrom of patterns and it's better to sympathize with one another than to compete." Indeed, he goes out of his way to champion the underdog, Nada, by protesting that his departmental colleagues consistently take advantage of this vulnerable old woman. In addition, Arthur establishes an intimate relationship with Grace; although she senses that her lover is a bit off, she nevertheless continues to see him socially. Arthur is a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde who cannot feel normal emotions. However, he is an accomplished actor who is able to fool most of the people whom he meets. Underneath his benign façade, Arthur is deeply despondent, admitting at one point, "I was agitated. Miserable. Forever no good." He takes out his self-loathing on innocents who, for the most part, have done him no harm. Sadly for Arthur and his unfortunate victims, he can never exorcise the demons that eat away at his dark and empty soul. "An Absolute Gentleman" is a tightly constructed and unnerving novel of psychological suspense that may impel some readers to start looking at their kindly neighbors with a jaundiced and suspicious eye.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The BEST PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER I have read in years,
This review is from: An Absolute Gentleman: A Novel (Counterpoint) (Paperback)
I cannot believe that this is a first novel! R. M. Kinder has crafted a unique serial killer in a psychological thriller that is just as good as the work of Patricia Highsmith and Ruth Rendell.
A college writing instructor, Arthur Blume is dedicated to his students, scrupulous about his work, elegant, well-spoken, intellectual, and often caring. A nice person, really, except for those pesky black holes in his character that lead to infrequent, random urges to murder. Raised by a mad, cruel mother, Arthur is a sad case, but his students, colleagues, and lovers don't catch on until a body is found in the snow. Ms. Kinder has written this novel with artfulness and a light touch. By telling the story in the voice of the absolute gentleman, in the style of Humbert Humbert in Nabokov's Lolita, she spares the reader the grisly details. To create suspense without shock requires a deft touch indeed. At the conclusion of the book, the author states that in writing An Absolute Gentleman, she drew from an experience she had with a real-life serial killer. I didn't realize this while I was reading it. I loved this book. To me, it had no wrong notes. I found the story compelling and the characters intriguing, and I was sorry to finish it. I hope that the book gains a great following, and I hope that R. M. Kinder is inspired to try her hand at this genre again and again.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A rare, startling book,
By KatPanama "katpanama" (Readerville) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: An Absolute Gentleman: A Novel (Counterpoint) (Paperback)
Last night I was up until 2:30am on a worknight reading this exceptional novel. It's one hell of a story, mega-creepy and the writing is exquisite and perfectly formed. A rare, startling book. You'll be recommending it to your friends if not pushing it into their hands.
It's a novel for book lovers in many ways: set on a mid-western campus; the protagonist is a creative-writing professor; the heroine is a literature professor. A novel for literature lovers; for those who appreciate an academic setting; for those who want to unravel a mystery; for all those who want to read a good book. Here you are! There are so many quotable lines but this one, maybe, is my favorite: "The natural world is no place for any creature, but there's no place else to go." Be good to your readerly heart -- read this novel just as soon as you can.
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