The Desperate Season [Paperback]

Michael Blaine (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 20, 2001

It begins, as shocking events often do, with a simple lapse in judgment.

A strange and brilliant young man slips out of a mental institution and takes his family hostage in the frozen isolation of the mountains. In a suffocating cabin, he demands the truth from Moira, the mother who admired and abandoned him; Nathan, the father who showered him with a dangerous, unconditional love; and Crissie, the younger sister who adored and betrayed him. At the center of this Rashomon-like tale are Moira, beautiful, deceptive, loving, and cold, and Vince, a stranger with a secret who finds himself drawn into the tense and explosive climax.

A visceral, relentlessly compelling novel of true literary achievement, The Desperate Season captivates as it terrifies, with a psychological power that resonates long after its haunting conclusion.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

An expertly realized account of mental illness, family trauma and violence, this first novel combines literary power with all-too-clear contemporary relevance. In the events at its harrowing center, Maurice, a young schizophrenic, stages a massacre with a semiautomatic rifle. The narration divides among six characters, beginning and ending with Maurice himselfAa risky but ultimately successful device that allows readers to establish an empathy that balances the horror of the acts Maurice commits after escaping from the local mental hospital near his home in the Upper Catskills. Buying a semiautomatic with distressing ease, Maurice seeks out his divorced parents for a confrontation that quickly envelops the entire town. Maurice's father, Nathan, is a local bank president who loves Maurice unconditionally, but has a dark side of his ownAhe finances his gambling habit by embezzling from accounts. Moira, Maurice's selfish mother, balances her love with fear: "Under the influence of his medication he's so calm he seems like a Buddhist. No, it's finding a way to speak to him. Groping for something to say is agony... " Soon, Maurice is holding his parents and sister, Chrissie, hostage. Also drawn in is Vince, a lawyer with a son of his own to raise, a love affair (now finished) with Moira and a secret reason to care for Maurice. Blaine's narrative never descends to exploitation of the teen violence in current headlines: instead, it's determinedly literary, psychologically acute, disturbing in the best sense of that word. In his remote and claustrophobic upstate mountain towns, Blaine creates a landscape as unforgiving as Maurice's mind. But his best creation is Maurice himself, a brilliant, sometimes charming young man who has the burden of perceiving the world in a way alien to the rest of us. 10-city author tour. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Imagine being so afraid of your own child that you are filled with dread at the sound of his voice over the telephone. Blaine's first novel is the story of one family's struggle to come to terms with the downward spiral of their schizophrenic oldest son. Told from the perspective of various participants in the crisis, it centers on Maurice Coleman's inadvertent release from a psychiatric hospital and the drama that unfolds when he takes his family hostage at their hunting camp in New York's Catskill Mountains. The story takes place mostly over the course of two days, but the narrative moves from character to character and back and forth in time over the two-day span, keeping the reader slightly off balance. Any book should be considered a success, however, if it makes the reader exclaim out loud in a public placeAand Blaine's novel did just that on several occasions. Recommended for all public libraries.ACaroline Mann, Univ. of Portland Lib., OR
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (February 20, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060959185
• ISBN-13: 978-0060959180
• Product Dimensions: 16.4 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,198,364 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The book has bite, bang and bile. Hang on for a wild ride., August 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Desperate Season (Hardcover)

Michael Blaine's The Desperate Season would disturb any reader at any time, but in post-Columbine America, its story of a disturbed young man with firearms unsettles even more. The richness of the book, however, lies not only in the story, but in how it is told. In addition to creating the point of view of this disturbed young man (Maurice Coleman), Blaine makes us privy to the first-person views of the half-dozen or so characters made up of family and friends who have touched Maurice's life in one way or another, and who will pay a heavy price.

By alternating these points of view in different time frames via flashbacks, ranging from minutes to years, the book builds an almost unbearable tension within the reader. If conflict is the stuff of drama, then this book has it in spades; the intricate variety of conflicts we witness in the characters is underscored by a conflict created within ourselves as readers! By deftly exploiting these shifts in time and points of view, the author pits two over-riding narrative desires against each other: the reader's desire to know what happened with the reader's desire to know why it happened. The book is something of the literary equivalent of the Cyclone roller coaster. Hang on for a wild ride.

The Desperate Season is at once both timely in its details of character and place, and timeless in its portrayal of a large and colorful palette of human frailty. Although not without humor, this book breaks your heart, as you cry out, "Oh, No!" in response to the inexorable path its characters must take to tragedy.

Neat, clean, beautifully sculpted prose, richly drawn characters revealing their deepest secrets, desires and fears, and a narrative that moves you to a gripping climax, make The Desperate Season that rarest thing: a new novel that will be around for a long time. A classic.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Dynamics of Mental Illness, June 30, 2000

By 

Tim Smith - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Desperate Season (Hardcover)

A stellar literary achievement, this first novel is the illumiating account of a schizo-affective young man, Maurice, who is prematurely released from the psych hospital and the events that occur as he decompensates. The story is ingeniously told through the eyes and voices of several characters important in Maurice's life. His mother, her best friend, his sister, father Nathan, and Vince, an attorney who was the boyfriend of Maurice's mother before he was born tell us about Maurice and themselves.

The perspective of their memories and the events as they unfold are startling and revealing. As events become known secrets about family relationships are revealed and more importantly the perceptions of reality through the minds of each character are brought to light. This allows the reader to postulate the dynamics that created Maurice's pathology.

I am going to definitely keep a lookout for Michel Blaine. He has written a superb foundation for a solid writing career.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars When poets write novels, June 30, 2000

By 

Ronald Dondiego - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Desperate Season (Hardcover)

I loved the way the words of Mr. Blain's nove flowed. I could see, feel, and sense the conflicts of his characters. The subject matter of the book was disturbing to say the least, however, these are desperate times for our teens. And so much of what we see today in our culture is based upon violence. Mr. Blain's novel takes us on a journer through a highly volitile landscape. And the wintry landscape he sets his story in does much to enhance the sheer power of it's rather complex exposition. Truely a great read. Try it.