Customer Reviews

Blind Fall: A Novel

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I've never read any of Anne Rice's books. I didn't even know Christopher Rice was her son until my wife told me, after I'd started the book. I would guess she's a good writer though, because her son's pretty polished, and this offering is very good, to say the least.

Our hero, the main character, is John Houck, a Marine just back from Iraq and out of the Corps after a decade, wracked by guilt over a misstep that cost one of his comrades an eye, and almost cost the guy his life. Houck decides to look him up and apologize, and instead walks in on the aftermath of his murder. He pursues someone who's running away, but that individual turns out to be the dead guy's gay lover, and of course this causes Houck to undergo all sorts of soul-searching, because he never realized his friend was gay.

This is a reasonably good mystery, and a very interesting suspense novel. Once you get past the whodunit aspect of things (which is revealed rather quickly) the book has more to do with the acceptance of gays in modern society, and how they interact with the rest of us. That's interesting, and it's well-done.

I enjoyed this book a great deal, and would recommend it to anyone.

I discovered Christopher Rice's work early on as I was a fan of his mother's. I've read all four of his books and enjoyed each of them. His first book, A Density of Souls, was one of his best work, along with Light Before Day. My only major complaint with his novels, to include this one, is that several times in each book the characters make decisions or take paths that stretch the grounds of believeability. While this does lead to more dramatic encounters and conflicts, I sometimes have to suspend the little voice inside saying "Who would actually do this in real life?" in order to get through the sections. But then again, this is fiction, right? Overall, I would recommend this book, but if you haven't read any of his work before and can only pick one, his first and third novels were much better.

Few writers can compel a reader forward as breathlessly as Christopher Rice, while along the way showing (through the characters' actions) a principle or statement about society. Often either the action suffers from didacticism or the message is lost in the action. Not here - action and meaning work seamlessly together in a rich tale.

The main character is driven by a sense of loyalty - sometimes recklessly - but he also suffers from problems that are epidemic in American culture: Homophobia and an ideal of hypermasculinity that is ultimately unattainable; and beliefs that he must be a protector and that he owes penitence for his past failures in this regard. He must overcome these flaws and feelings of inadequacy and by the end he does, in a credible manner.

The relationships are also poignant. Love between men can be a brotherly platonic sort of love, the kind that allows them to survive in combat, or it can be a marital and sexual love that allows them to survive a lifetime together. Rice demonstrates both kinds of love and how men who feel one can come to understand the other. This is difficult territory in American literature and Rice is brave to tackle it, and he succeeds masterfully.

Semper Fi, Christopher!
Rich Merritt
Code of Conduct

The past's collision with the present casts lingering shadows on the future in Christopher Rice's latest thriller, "Blind Fall." In a bold departure only hinted at in his previous novel "Light Before Day" (2005), Rice takes on the military and a straight protagonist in this breakneck-paced psychological thriller. "Blind Fall" tells a classic military-themed story of redemption and revenge against the contemporary backdrop of the Iraq War and its aftermath on the brave soldiers who serve - all wrapped up in the intricately layered narrative style for which Rice first garnered both fans and critical notice with "A Density of Souls" (2000) and "The Snow Garden" (2001).

John Houck is a man haunted by his past - the specter of his younger brother's suicide, an estrangement from the sister who raised him, and the guilt over a critical mistake made during a special ops mission that left Mike Bowers, the venerated captain of his Force Recon Company, badly injured. Struggling to assimilate to civilian life, Houck decides to pay a long-overdue visit to his former captain only to stumble across a grisly murder scene and the unlikely revelation of Bowers' homosexuality. Houck soon realizes that Alex Martin, Bowers' male lover, was the intended target and that the local authorities may have more than just a passing interest in the case. In order to posthumously repay his debt of honor to Bowers, Houck decides to protect Martin despite mounting odds that include a disappearing corpse, a police manhunt, and the collapse of his own belief system.

Aside from one extended passage concerning Martin's survivalist training that reads like a gay version of "G.I. Jane" meets "A Few Good Men" and threatens to overstay its tenuous welcome, subplots converge tidily, if at times improbably, in Rice's patented tension-filled denouement. Wisely, Rice plays down the homoeroticism of previous efforts like "Density" and "Snow Garden" in favor of tension that originates from the circumstances his characters find themselves in - thus avoiding what could have too easily become a straight-gay military fantasy in print. It's a further sign of the welcome literary maturity readers glimpsed in "Light."

As in his earlier New Orleans-set "Density" and New England-set "Snow Garden," setting plays a key role here - a full-fledged minor character among the well-stocked ensemble. Rice has a keen eye and obvious appreciation for the dichotomous California locations that serve as set-pieces for "Blind Fall's" action - from the log cabin charms of mountain towns to the north and opulent seaside resorts dotting coastal lines to the south to the arid, windmill generator-strewn desert in between:

"John returned his attention to the road; up ahead he saw the trailer Patsy has described. It sat behind a chain-link fence. The walls had been painted baby blue, and there was a children's playground in the front yard, in the shadow of an enormous, multibranched Joshua tree. Ribbons of various colors had been tied along the top of the front fence. There was nothing that spoke more to him of the desert than a run-down trailer whose owner had gone to every pathetic attempt to dress it up that she could afford. In Louisiana, nature itself would bring canopies of greenery to the most impoverished of homes. In the desert, the unforgiving light allowed hardship few disguises."

Thematically, "Blind Fall" is a mixed bag, and one could almost fault Rice for over-ambition if he hadn't kept the myriad themes so well-balanced and in-check. While misconceptions, denial, the ravages of guilt, and homophobia remain poised on the periphery of Rice's thematic landscape, it's his sharp yet subtle observations on codes of honor and gay military service that stand front and center. And while one can almost imagine the heavy-handedness with which a gay writer writing about the hypocrisies of gay military service in America could weigh down the prose, Rice instead opts for a remarkable restraint here, rendering his commentary with an understated poignancy:

"He froze when he saw that the dark mass gathered at the bottom of the box was Mike's dress blues, several gold buttons staring up at him like coins in the bottom of a grime-covered fountain. Their condition, as well as their position, beneath tattered hardcover novels and framed diplomas, was too appropriate a symbol of what had become of Mike's life for John to linger on them for too long."

Depicting how Mike Bowers' exemplary military service is systematically written off by his parents and overshadowed in the media by the revelation of his sexual orientation, Rice discounts the military as an institution that holds honesty as one of its core tenets and exposes the "don't ask, don't tell" policy for the whitewash of truth that it really is. Even in his acknowledgements, Rice thanks only the nebulous "several Marines" with whom he consulted on the book, acknowledging that to mention them by name might imperil their good standing. It's in this intrinsic sadness at the heart of "Blind Fall" - both in the idea of a fallen Marine and in the concept that he fell alone - that imbues the book with its emotional depth.

Blending elements of psychological suspense with straight-ahead crime noir while generously stacking his literary deck with layers of mystery, Rice fashions a tense military-edged thriller reminiscent of "In the Valley of Elah" that's interspersed with shades of Dennis Lehane's "Mystic River" and John Morgan Wilson's "Rhapsody in Blood." Addictive from page one, "Blind Fall" will catapult readers into a dizzying freefall of anticipation that gains in momentum with each successive turn of the page.

Blind Fall is about a straight Sargeant,John Houck, who's life is saved by a closeted Captain, Mike Bowers, during Desert Storm. Back at home, when Houck goes to thank Bowers for sacrificing an eye for his life he discoveres that Bowers has been killed. He then must join forces with Bowers's lover and the two men have to overcome their own prejudges in order to find out who killed Captain Mike Bowers.

I enjoy Christopher Rice's novels. I am not a literary critic by any means, but I am well read. Having read all of his books I have found that he writes well and is very insightful when blending the differences between straight and gay people.

I am a heterosexual woman who enjoys reading gay mysteries. When I read Christopher Rice's novels I find men who want relationships with ADULTS who they can relate to both intellectually and sexually. So many of the mysteries have gay men lusting after teenagers and depict anyone older than thirty as having "one foot in the grave." This, to me, is tiring. I enjoy the maturity of Rice's characters. They are not so different than straight people in their quest to be better people and learn from their mistakes.

If you haven't read any of his previous novels and you enjoy this one, try them. I have also read some of his articles. They are also worth reading, especially if you want to gain an understanding of homosexuals instead of judging them from a far.

I should state at first that I rank Mr Rice's "A Density of Souls" and "The Snow Garden" among my favorite books and I quite enjoyed his third novel, "Light Before Day". His fourth novel, "Blind Fall", the story of a war-traumatized Marine named John Houck and his attempts to discover who brutally murdered his former commanding officer, sounded like a very compelling story, especially when the reader realizes that the murdered Marine was gay and living with a secret lover in California's back country. This story sounded intriguing, like a wonderful suspense novel, and I dearly hoped it would be that.

Unfortunately, I was very disappointed in this novel. While the jacket description makes this novel sound like a thought provoking suspense thriller, it is not quite what I expected from Mr Rice. I realize that he is trying to make a statement regarding gays in the military, serving openly, and I admire him for attempting to make that point. It is a pity that the United States Armed Forces still lives by the "don't ask, don't tell" policy which so terribly deprives men and women of their very right to serve their country honorably because of their sexual orientation. This is an intolerable abuse of power. I was expecting some great statement to be made about why the policy is so terrible, but Mr Rice fails to live up to that hope, and instead creates a rather watered down whodunnit mystery that manages to disappoint rather than offer more insight into the characters.

I found John to quite fleshed out, but his realism sways from over the top traumatized solider to a character whom I was unsure of whether or not to like. I wanted to root for John, I really did, but his character becomes less and less likable and more and more unpredictable as the novel goes on that I wonder if Mr Rice's intention was to make John as lackluster as he becomes. The dead Marine's lover was far more compelling, I thought, a fully fleshed out modern gay man who realized exactly who he was in love with and what he was willing to do in order to avenge him. This character I quite liked, far more than the main man, John.

I suppose that Mr Rice wanted to take a break from the rather hard-boiled nature of "Light Before Day" but I found "Blind Fall" to be that most unforgiving of thrillers: a boring one. Unfortunately nothing happens in the novel to make me care one way or another about John and his colleague, even as they hunt a killer who appears to be the very stereotype of gay-hating white male. I was rather appalled by this stereotyping as Mr Rice has always seemed to be above that level of characterization in his novels.

Overall, "Blind Fall" is a weak step in Mr Rice's writing career and I hope he can return to his previous level of success with his next novel. As I stated previously, "A Density of Souls" and "The Snow Garden" are two of my favorite books, but "Blind Fall" easily ranks among the most boring books I've read this year. It's not a bad book, no, but criminally boring.

This book is a vast improvement over Light Before Day. Christopher has gained control of his characters and the manipulation of the plot. A Density of Souls is still my favorite book he has written but this one is a close second. John and Alex are complex characters who are thrown together in a vast number of circumstances that pulls at your heart and carries your interest from page to page. Blind Fall has an extremely captivating plot and absorbing characters that are tied together in a heartfelt manner that will dazzle every reader. Blind Fall is compelling and entertaining. I highly recommend it!

You might enjoy this book if you don't mind
Bad grammar:
- "But he kept his mouth shut, fought images of he and Alex living together..."

Awkward sentences:
- "He steered through the tiny service alley behind the club, saw Philip waiting for him, the back door open and propped against one shoulder."
- "But just then, John saw the black Royal Marquis parked across the street and several car lengths away, in a spot that offered a perfect view of Alex's vehicle for the police officer John imagined was sitting behind the heavily tinted windshield."

I read about half the book and could not continue. Contrived people, contrived situations", unbelievably long, convoluted sentences - not a good book.

This was a mediocre thriller by a writer who can do MUCH better, as he's already shown us in A Density of Souls and The Snow Garden.

There just seemed to be too many sub-plots floating around. I wish Rice would have picked one, expanded the storyline on it, and given us a much better read. As is, the book seemed fractured and meandered, with some rather outlandish plot lines along the way.

I finished the book because I believe Rice is a good, maybe even great writer, and I kept hoping for more. But sadly it wasn't in "Blind Fall."

I really wanted to like this book. I still think Christopher Rice is an important voice in American fiction who is still waiting to find the BIG story to write (like David Leavitt wrote in "The Lost Language of Cranes"). I think he's deluding himself if he thinks he's the writer of "thrillers". I don't want to engage in an argument over the definition of a "thriller" or a "mystery", but to my mind "The Hunt for Red October" is a thriller, whereas "Blind Fall" is a clunky mystery with charters, locales, and dialog that ranges from authentic to absolutely pedestrian. Add to that the over-weening polemic on gays in the military, gay oppression/acceptance, and whatever mystery and suspense there is to the story simply gets lost in the brew.