Customer Reviews

Apparitions

5 star:		(5)
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In the tradition of Pirandello's famous "Six Chatacters in Search of an Author" and Woody Allen's "Purple Rose of Cairo" Chan's first novel obliterates the line between fact and fiction in this very clever, hysterically funny, and sometimes erotic fantasy. What a great read from a new novelist.

It's not War and Peace or Moby Dick. It's shorter and funnier, the characters don't have hard-to-keep-track-of names, and it moves along like a drug-enhanced Olympic sprinter.

Some of the lines are so brilliantly quotable that I found myself making note of them to toss off at cocktail parties without attribution. I can't think of another book that succeeds quite so brilliantly in intertwining humor, romance, kinky sex, excitement and even wisdom. It has it all.

It's the first book in years that I've read twice.

I've gotten sick of lawyers turned writers; Grisham, Turow, Martini and such; but this guy really can write, and, I suspect, can lawyer as well.

Apparitions stars Jed Caplan, a lawyer and "paperback writer," who is plagued by people who look and speak like characters he's developed in his manuscripts. Then he falls in love with Deja, a charming psychopath for whom murder, like sex, is oh so much better with someone you love. It seems that Jed hallucinating. No, a seasoned oncologist has diagnosed him as having a brain tumor. Wait, he's the target of a vengeful conspiracy. On the verge of suicide, he discovers... You'll be surprised, then outraged and then you'll realize that some of your own long-established beliefs are simply wrong.

I loved it.

Don't let Apparitions slip by you! Robert Chan is a new voice, writing with wit, suspense and style. This is a story that will perplex and enthrall you from beginning to end. I loved the idea of a writer's fictional characters coming to life, and what characters they are! Chan pulls it off with a plausible explanation and one of the most creative surprise endings I have encountered. Robert Chan- an author to look for in the future.

This is a formidable read through and through. Author Robert Chan has done a bang up job on painting a portrait of a professional psyche gone completely awry. I could not put it down! It is a must read for one and all!

I read it three times: first for the clever lines and the exhilarating plot, then for the insights and wisdom and finally to highlight those portions which I wanted to memorize and quote.

Jed Caplan, a lawyer and unpublished novelist, is unnerved when he begins to encounter his fictional characters in the flesh. Then he meets his most fascinating creation, Deja, a brilliant and seductive thrill-killer. Intoxicated by their kinky sex, Jed stops caring whether she is a figment of his imagination or a living psychopath. Then she vanishes along with all evidence that she ever existed. Have the pressures of divorce, fatherhood, and his cutthroat law practice driven Jed crazy? Or is he the target of a vengeful conspiracy? He runs from one false lead to another until he discovers the horrifying truth, and realizes he must bend it to his own advantage. By slaying his own demons, Jed reveals the dark underside of the glittering world of the New York legal elite and comes to understand true love.

It has romance and kinky sex, but it is also profound, constantly challenging accepted beliefs about reality, love and sensory experience. For me the test to distinguish great literature from merely entertaining fiction is if It make me see the world in a different and better way. Apparitions gets an A+.

It's a love story as only a disillusioned New York City lawyer can tell it.

If I'm ever in serious legal trouble, I'm going to hire Chan to get me out of it. He out-writes Grisham and the others, and I'm sure he can out-lawyer them as well.

What can I say? Read this book!