Dark Companion [Hardcover]

Jim Nisbet (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0939767546 | ISBN-13: 978-0939767540 | Publication Date: July 30, 2006 | Edition: First Edition

Overlook continues its reissues of the incomparable Jim Nisbet¹s oeuvre with Dark Companion. Nisbet, the acclaimed noir writer from San Francisco captures the absurdities of present-day America with a rare pungency in this noir gem.

Banerjhee Rolf, a bright, levelheaded Indian-American scientist, is content to spend his days with his wife, tending his garden and studying his beloved astronomy. When Rolf ¹s relationship with his seedy, drug-dealing neighbor, Toby Pride, and Pride¹s stoner girlfriend takes a weird turn, Rolf¹s placid world is shattered and he becomes a fugitive from justice. Crime, cosmology, politics, philosophy, physics and more enter into this cautionary tale, which climaxes with the suddenness of a cobra strike and then delivers a denouement that¹s both stunning and absolutely perfect.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Nisbet (Price of the Ticket) captures the absurdities of present-day America with a rare pungency in this noir gem, which not only succinctly illuminates a complex process like a California pharmaceutical company's rapid rise, growth, takeover, corporate squeeze, outsourcing and inevitable decline but also puts a human face on it. Banerjhee Rolf, a bright, levelheaded Indian-American scientist, is content to spend his days with his wife, tending his garden and studying his beloved astronomy. Despite unfairly losing his lab job at the pharmaceutical company he helped start, he accepts his fate without anger. When Rolf's relationship with his seedy, drug-dealing neighbor, Toby Pride, and Pride's stoner girlfriend takes a weird turn, Rolf's placid world is shattered and he becomes a fugitive from justice. Crime, cosmology, politics, philosophy, physics and more enter into this cautionary tale, which climaxes with the suddenness of a cobra strike and then delivers a denouement that's both stunning and absolutely perfect. While Nisbet will never hit a bestseller list or be anointed by Oprah, his work will be praised and enjoyed long after that of more celebrated writers has been forgotten. (July)
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From Booklist

Bannerjhee Rolf is a classic noir victim: he wanders into the wrong world at the wrong time and pays for it inordinately. A scientist working for a California pharmaceutical company, Rolf is suddenly downsized and then becomes entangled in the lives of his drug-dealer neighbor, Toby, and Toby's wacked-out girlfriend. Chaos ensues quickly, leaving Rolf on the run, marching with stoic resolve to his inevitable end. But what makes this curious novel different from its kin is Rolf's vibrant inner life: a passionate amateur astronomer, he muses on supernovas, contemplates the poetry of the Crab Nebula, and remembers a long-lost California: "a full moon over San Francisco Bay, the splash of a jumping fish in a Delta channel at dusk, the sussurant clatter of a eucalyptus grove . . . his mind wandered freely among them." And that freely wandering mind somehow lights from within the dismal darkness of the noir world. Nisbet's novels (The Syracuse Codex, 2005) always look like one thing but turn out to be something else entirely. It is a rare talent, not accessible to all, perhaps, but no less special. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Dennis Mcmillan Pubns; First Edition edition (July 30, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0939767546
• ISBN-13: 978-0939767540
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,604,694 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars On my "little known gem" list., October 26, 2006

By 

Richard L. Pangburn (Bardstown, KY USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Dark Companion (Hardcover)

A tragicomedy with a lot to say. Part farce, part indictment of our corporate culture, part parable on the fragility of human existence.

The book opens with a style and pace reminiscent of Thorne Smith and Damon Runyon and Peter De Vries--comic in the way of TOPPER, say, but updated to recent times. With just a few deft brush strokes, Nisbet paints a picture of a simple and reclusive man in a happy marriage, just trying to get along. But as Damon Runyon used to say, "all life is 6-5 against," and soon his life begins to unravel.

Jim Nisbet writes well and he interlaces his narratives with images and ideas, laughter and madness, and just as supernovas flare and die, a human destiny might follow its own falling-star-arc as if by deathwish. Here, we watch and admire the beauty of it.

And this is indeed a work of art, all the way around. Jim Nisbet's novels are instant collectors' items. The dustjacket of DARK COMPANION is especially gorgeous and symbolically relevant to the text. This is a quick read, even though I made myself slow down to relish it, with just 144 pages and set in an easy-to-read font.

A small gem, and easily one of the best novels I've read this year.

3.0 out of 5 stars Noir that needed tightening, June 23, 2011

By 

Timothy G. Niland (New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dark Companion: A Novel (Paperback)

This short novel by progressive crime and noir author Nisbet is a strange mix of ideas that don't seem to cohere thoroughly, adding elements of science, science fiction and family drama and despite an interesting premise don't quite flow as well as they should. Main character B.J. Rolf is a chemical engineer, laid off by his mega-corporation after their latest round of Darwinian acquisition and downsizing. Left at home to brood, he compulsively does yard work and reads about astronomical phenomenon, especially neutron stars, while his faithful wife works and cooks, and his son attends university. When his wife leaves suddenly to scout out opportunities in Chicago, B.J. is pulled into the life of his neighbor, whom he previously considered a ne'er do well, but is forced to change his mind in a hurry as an incident of extraordinary violence upends his life completely and sends him on the run as a fugitive. Nisbet does show considerable imagination and sympathy with his characters, which are well drawn in the course of what is essentially three interlocked stories loosely held together by a few interlocking elements. But in the end, we are left with more questions than answers from this talented and enigmatic author.