Adams Fall [Hardcover]

Desmond Sean (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 9, 2000

It's an especially bleak and gray October at the College, and the brooding protagonist of Adams Fall finds himself under the classic strains of first semester senior year-a thesis to write, grad schools and fellowships to apply for, a future to ponder, and a girlfriend to elude. A full, but manageable load for any bright-eyed, self-starting English honors student.But our protagonist resides in Adams House's reportedly haunted B-entry where he becomes eerily attuned to its dark, gothic strength, creaking floorboards, and shadowy stairwell and tunnels.And when he finds himself the object of the house's sinister attentions, his world quickly begins to unravel. As his grades and aspirations slip, so slips his mind...Into his crumbling Ivy League existence enters a charming and vindictive playboy from the College's past who continually harasses the protagonist about the circumstances surrounding the suicide of his freshman year roommate. When faced with the grisly murder of a woman he had been cheating on his girlfriend with, our desperate protagonist resolves to discover the identity of this depraved spirit, put an end to its raging, and restore sanity and some small sliver of success to his final year of school. With a tip of its hat to Henry James, Adams Fall elegantly blends ghost story and psychological thriller, and terrifyingly reveals how academic pressures can quickly build into murderous paranoia.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Harvard's Adams House has a checkered past--ghosts in the attic, shadowy tunnels under the basement, and a history of student suicides and murders. The present isn't much sunnier, especially for the nameless protagonist, a senior plagued by memories of his freshman roommate's death and haunted by a specter who's got a few scores to settle before he quits this earthly realm for good. Author Sean Desmond, a Harvard graduate, takes us deep inside the drug and spirit-ridden head of his main character, who's got girlfriend troubles as well as a thesis to finish, a guilty secret to hide, and a problem or two with reality. It doesn't endear us to this overprivileged twit, but it adds to the Gothic atmosphere, which is laid on with a heavy hand. The ghost from the past is a much more interesting figure. He's a vindictive playboy with charm that doesn't quite equal his prescience in choosing a target whose descent into madness--and maybe murder--is horrifyingly depicted. In this, his debut novel, Desmond shows signs of an emerging talent. Unfortunately it's not fully realized in this somewhat muddled, though exceptionally creepy, tale. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly

Restless ghosts roam the august halls of Harvard in this debut psychothriller, a younger sibling to The Shining. In his senior year at Harvard, the unnamed narrator's life is falling apart. Having faithfully toiled in his classes for three years with good results, he is now burnt out as he goes through the motions of composing his senior thesis, and completes his application for study abroad with all the animation of a zombie. He is bored with his girlfriend, Rosie, and haunted by memories of her ex, Billy, the narrator's freshman roommate and former best friend, who hanged himself in their room. The protagonist copes by frantic boozing, drug taking and clandestine sex with his glamorous classmate, Maeve. But he begins to suffer headaches and spells of d j vu while restlessly pacing the dorm's old underground tunnels and its roof. He can't figure out why his grades slip perilously and his health declines, until he meets a spectral visitor from the past who appears to be enjoying himself at the narrator's expense and hints at sexual secrets. Things go terribly wrong on Halloween, when the narrator, in a mushroom-induced paranoia, wakes up with a fearsome image of Maeve dead in the underground tunnels. To his horror, he finds that the ghost, a former Adams resident, is merrily reconstructing two deadly scenes from the past, using the narrator and his circle as stand-ins. Newcomer Desmond shows a flair for character development and wry observations about Ivy League life. Even if his plotting is unoriginal and the dialogue a bit flat, this is an entertaining debut and a suitable Halloween release. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books; 1st edition (October 9, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031226254X
• ISBN-13: 978-0312262549
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,315,920 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Blown Away & Freaked Out, September 19, 2000

By 

Dave Clark - See all my reviews

This review is from: Adams Fall (Hardcover)

After finishing the intriguing novel called "Adams Fall" by Sean Desmond, I was blown away and a bit freaked out. I couldn't put it down, and was fascinated with the story. Several times while reading the book I actually got the chills, and was afraid to be by myself. It is packed with paragraphs that are hilarious and wonderfully descriptive. I really was drawn into the main character's perspective of the college, and it was very easy to identify with him. It is a novel that is cloaked in secrecy, yet it reveals a powerful insight into the depths of the dark side of the human experience. After reading "Adams Fall," the first thing I did was flip back to the first page to start the ride all over again.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's Love Story meets The Shining, September 19, 2000

By 

Sean Fitzpatrick (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Adams Fall (Hardcover)

Warning: this book will cause insomnia! I reached a point while reading this novel where I was terrified to continue reading, but I was equally terrified to close the book and turn off the light. (I opted to keep reading, and boy am I glad to be 3,000 miles away from Harvard's blood-soaked bricks.) My favorite scene was set on Halloween night in the steam tunnels beneath the library - don't expect to fall asleep after reading that chapter.

Sean Desmond is a master of terror and I am certain that his horrifying portrait of Adams House circa 1994 will haunt me for years to come.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Harvard will Never be the Same, February 27, 2001

By 

Hassan Galadari (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Adams Fall (Hardcover)

I have been to Boston twice in my lifetime and during my time there, I have visited Harvard on more than a couple of occassions. The atmosphere is dark, grim and not the oh so cheerful college-style freedom you come to get acquainted with when visiting any other university in any other part of the world. I always thought that was because of the Harvard demeanour and the fact that going to one of world's most respected school kind of does that to you. This book takes that personally contrived notion, gulps it up, spits it back out and forms a whole different and darker image of the place.

We start off with the length, which is very right for this book in more than a different count. First being that Sean Desmond is a first time author where mistakes could be masked by making things up to the point and another is the fact that a story like this one is greatly told in a hit and run fashion. Desmond is successful enough to take us into a journey deep in the mind of the narrator, who through the novel is nameless. His thoughts, desires and fall from grace is well depicted throughout. The story moves more like a fall from grace style of writing and holds true to many biblical mythos and figures.

Is it scary? I have read scarier books, but this book holds a suspense factor of 9 on a 10 scale. You just want to know what might happen. The only thing that the book fails to answer is why things are happening. The book will leave you wanting more, but I won't necessary think it would make an insomniac out of you.

For a first time author, Desmond is good and his lacking are only apparent when it comes to naming places in the Boston area in great detail with names and such. This creates a lot of confusion with those not familiar with the place, especially knowing that these places actually exist in reality.

I'm planning to visit Boston this summer and I would definitely have to make time to spend in Adams House and walk in the steps that this story's charcater walked in. Harvard will never be the same in my eyes after reading this piece. For once, the danky old place has become a tad bit exciting.