Customer Reviews

American Purgatorio

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

 

 

This strange novel requires a certain mindset, a willingness to follow the protagonist through a series of actions that make no sense in an ordinary context. But that is the point. This man is engaged in an effort to control his environment and limit his reactions to the world around him. When he walks outside after buying snacks in a gas station-convenience store, his wife, Anne, is missing, along with their car. His reaction to this event is to wait at the gas station for her to return. When she doesn't, he walks from New Jersey back to Brooklyn, abandoning their trip to Anne's mother in Nyack, New York without even calling his mother-in-law to tell her what has happened. He doesn't call the police or act as if anything is amiss, simply returns home and goes to bed. He continues in this disjointed manner with occasional fits of rage, generally carefully monitoring himself. Within a couple of days, he buys a used car and begins a journey to recover his lost wife, using a map she has circled in strategic places. Although he has difficulty connecting to those around him, he travels across the country, the author beautifully describing people and places with a sense of immediacy and a fine talent for detail.

The narrative abstract becomes meditation in American Purgatorio, and an exploration of the seven deadly sins, difficult territory to traverse, requiring the reader to trust where the writer is taking him. Fantasy must be tempered with fact, enough to pin the character to earth while his mind drifts elsewhere in pursuit of a loved one. Clinging to the details of each place he inhabits, the protagonist is barely anchored, yet he manages to tap into reality often enough to maintain a sense of direction, his goal inexorably closer with each place he visits. Not quite a mystery in this mystery, the novel is as well a remarkable travelogue of terrain and the human spirit, wherein one man's deception is another man's heart break, a memorable journey toward self-realization and the nature of the world as we perceive it. Luan Gaines/ 2006.

From page one I was hooked on this fast-paced, interesting debut novel about a happliy married man who goes into a gas station to get a snack and comes out to find his wife and car missing. The book is written in rather simple prose, which makes for an extremely fast read, however, there is a lot of depth and meaning underlying the simplicity of the words and sentences. So despite reading quickly, you're left pondering how John Haskell was able to so precisely capture raw human emotion, while using such deadpan prose. He has a unique writing style, but one which is extremely admirable, as he so wonderfully taps into how the protagnoist must have felt at each stage of his "search" for his wife, while experiencing each of the seven deadly sins (named in Latin for each part of the book).

I really enjoyed this novel, but don't think its for everyone, so I have a hard time recommending so highly in this review. If you're looking for something different, very well-written, and which captures the complexity of human emotion during a difficult time, this book will likely interest you. If you're on-the-fence, I recommend reading the first chapter before purchasing it, to get an idea about the style in which it is written.
I would likely read another novel by this author, as I believe he is very gifted, and provides interesting insight into the human condition.

This book is astonishing: a beautiful, lyrical, philosophical work that needs to be read with care and due attention, (and not as if it were merely the latest offering from some TV book club). This is the real thing; it doesn't go out to win you over, it works on its own terms, and asks you to come along with it on an amazing journey - a journey which is more than worthwhile.

I stayed up too late finishing American Purgatorio, then woke up too early -- before the alarm -- rethinking what I had read. At daylight I was back in the book, checking key passages. An ending that at midnight made me groan aloud in sadness, was found at dawn to deliver an odd redemption.

Jack -- a name the protagonist wears loosely -- is, for good reason, a man apart. He lives in his head. Like a transcontinental drive in the slow lane in a dying car, Jack's narrative of his crossing doesn't whip past. That's the book's challenge, but also its pleasure. At that pace you don't miss the sights, both real and mirage.

I loved Haskell's short story collection, 'I Am Not Jackson Pollack.' It was really something fresh and new.

This novel is both compelling and heart-breaking. When Haskell's writing is at its best it is simultaneously highly readable and containing of great depth. There are stumbles in this book though. Parts of it just don't live up to other parts. That's not to say it isn't admirable or that any other writer out there could have done any better. The fact that he was able to create such a challenging plot to execute is alone worth a lot of praise.

There were a fair amount of typos in the first printing I read.

One of the editorial reviews above says the reader may feel tricked. I can't imagine a reader being so clueless that they'd be that surprised by any of the "revelations" in the book. The title alone tells you that such surprises might be coming.

Haskell's style isn't for everyone, but I'd recommend to most anyone that they at least give this book a shot.

p.s. Near the start the narrator talks about how glass flows and old glass is wobbly because of it. That's not true! Old glass is wobbly because it was made before the plate glass process was invented and in wide use. Glass is an amorphous solid and doesn't really flow.

I just finished reading American Purgatorio, and I have so many emotions, its difficult to focus on just one. The journey that Jack is on is sad, happy, depressing, but something that kept reaching out as I read, was true honest feeling's about being left alone after losing your partner in life. The sense of complete and total 'aloneness' and of beginning anew ran parallel. You wish you belonged to a book club so you could discuss interpretations is the feeling I'm left with.

This story starts out as a compelling mystery. It ran out of steam about 3/4 of the way through, though, with too many characters that didn't move me. The mystery man in the center of the story is at the same time odd and heartbreaking as he searches for his wife and for meaning in his life.

I hope the author didn't spend too much time writing this book. It would have been a lot better with some semblance of coherence.

I tried to like this, but got halfway through it and it just couldn't sustain my interest any longer. Maybe it really picks up about the point that I ended up putting it down. There are too many other books out there to read, though.