It begins, as shocking events usually do, with a simple lapse in judgement: On February 26, Maurice Coleman is prematurely released from the institution where he is being treated for schizophrenia. After dumping his medications into a stream and buying a semiautomatic at a local gun shop, Maurice makes his way through the bitter snow to his parents' secluded hunting cabin. There, we learn the tragic consequences of Maurice's madness from the broken family that both loves and fears him: Moira, the estranged mother who offers little comfort to Maurice; Nathan, the ex-husband and devoted father, who showers his son with an oblivious love; Crissie, the younger sister, who befriends, despises, and ultimately sees her brother as only a sibling can; and Vince, an outsider with a secret, who finds himself drawn into the final, fateful confrontation.
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Book Description
In the frozen isolation of a remote country cabin, a young man holds his family at gunpoint. As their survival hangs in the balance, they must face a terrifying reality: that the shadow of madness looms closer that we choose to acknowledge--and sometimes, it is born of our own flesh and blood.
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.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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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.,
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,
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,
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.
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