Customer Reviews

A Brief Lunacy

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This is an evocative and scary story of a home invasion. The author combines lyrical writing with a thrilling plot, to good effect. It was so spot on that in places it's a hard story to read. Thayer does not pull punches. The plot is relentless, riveting and condensed down to the essentials. We see violence and redemptive love. We see character revealed by crisis, when everyday concerns and facades are stripped away. From the death camps of Nazi germany to the immediacy of the attack, the author takes a close look at evil, at goodness unmasked, at what survives and endures.

This is the typical boogyman story. Would anyone in this day and age let a stranger into their house? I think not. These were weak people and the perfect victims. I, too, was hoping one of them would shake off the confusion that seemed to engulf them, and defend themselves. Oh well, I will not read her stories again.

I am currently listening to the audio version of this book. The book has it's good spots, but I can't wait to finish it. I find myself skipping portions now to get through the slow agony of wondering when Carl and Jesse are EVER going to regain THEIR sanity and really do something to stop the mentally ill "visitor" who mysteriously shows up at their home. It seems like they keep making excuses and rationalizing how they can't stop him. In reality, most people, even more spritely elderly folks would have made more efforts to stop someone from torturing and rape, even though "he had a gun." And then the stories of Carl's memories of his "real" childhood, is just too much being interspered with crazy Jonah and his bag of torture tricks. I just want this to end.

In this tense, horror-fuelled, and totally dramatic literary thriller, author, Cynthia Thayer weaves together the seemingly disparate themes of honesty, madness, and the lengths that people will ultimately go to protect their sanity. Full of incisive observations on the human psyche, A Brief Lunacy shows - with startling realism - what can happen when one single error of judgment can unleash a hornet's nest of violence and bloodshed.

Jessie and Carl are retired married couple living in a cabin in rural Maine, both have had pretty fulfilling lives with Carl having led a distinctive and respectable career as a hip and knee surgeon. They spend their days relaxing, painting trees in the woods, reading books, and gazing at the sea birds on the rocks. Their life is ostensibly full of tranquility, but they continue to be haunted by Sylvie, their beautiful but mentally troubled daughter.

Viewing it as "the family business" both - to a certain extent - blame themselves and each other for how she turned out. At first, things seemed fine, until one day Sylvie explodes in a vitriolic fit of profanity at her school graduation. Now Jessie and Carl sit and worry about their first-born "who has no family of her own and not even a promise of a career."

Eventually sent to an institution, Jessie and Carl do their best to cope with the situation, until a phone call one tranquil October afternoon informs them that their daughter has disappeared. Wracked with worry, they stay by the phone hoping that Sylvie will come to them; she does call, but just spews out a bunch of nonsensical stories. They beg her to come home, frantically holding onto a shred of hope that Sylvie, the old Sylvie, lies somewhere underneath all the craziness, where "it's just a matter of digging her out."

Then, as evening falls, a stranded young man comes to their door seeking shelter and asking to use the phone and - against their better judgment - they let him in. He tells them his campsite has been robbed and he is stranded with no money and no gear. Thinking about her own missing daughter Jessie takes pity on him. She hopes that Sylvie, wherever she may be is receiving the same kindness and compassion.

The man's name is Jonah, and he soon makes himself comfortable. But Carl and Jessie become increasingly uneasy. There's something about this young man that puts them on edge - he knows more about their family than they dare to imagine, and he ignores their hints that he should leave. Unfortunately, Jonah has no intention of leaving as it soon becomes apparent that, like Sylvie he is not only mentally troubled, but also horribly violent.

A day of madness and torture soon falls upon the three of them as they struggle to explicate the ghosts of the past and hold onto their sanity. As the afternoon turns into the night, Jonah becomes progressively more crazed. Constantly popping little white pills, he wipes the corners of his mouth, and jiggles his leg, justifying his actions because "he has God behind him"; like Jonah from the Old Testament, the angry one, and the one who defied God, Jonah explains to them that he's "the boy in the well; the boy no mother could love; the end of the line." But as the evening progresses, it is Jessie and Carl that really come to know one anther, as Carl's true role in the Nazi holocaust is revealed. And Jessie comes to realize that it is only intimacy through art and stories that one can truly understand the mysteries of the human condition.

With a taught, tight narrative that alternates between the voices of Jessie and Carl, Thayer manages to hold the dramatic tension throughout. At once refrained, but also quite unnerving and powerful, her blunt, yet smooth style gradually encapsulates the reader. A Brief Lunacy gets to the steadfast heart of human quandary and insecurity. Jessie, Carl, and Jonah have come together in a violent triptych, yet each is struggling alone, searching for answers for escape and for sanity. Mike Leonard March 05.