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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Separate Peace Meets American Psycho, May 12, 2009
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Colin McAdam's FALL starts off like many a prep school book and immediately brings to mind A SEPARATE PEACE because it explores a Finny-like good looking athletic kid (Julius) and his studious, borderline loser roommate (Noel). To give it a twist, McAdam adds the beautiful Fall (Fallon), Julius's girlfriend, and has young Noel develop an unhealthy fascination for BOTH roomie and roomie's girl. It's all going fine -- with a few bumps in the road -- until about halfway through. Then we're faced with the AMERICAN (OK, maybe AUSTRALIAN, as Noel hails from Down Under) PSYCHO part.
Let's start with the bumps in the road. I liked McAdam's work out of the gate because he seemed to have an excellent feel for the "edgy" dynamic between boys living in the close quarters of prep school dorms. The other author who caught this nicely was Richard Yates in A GOOD SCHOOL. The boys are desperate for female love, but kind of, sort of, don't-you-dare-name-it love each other, too, if they're good friends. McAdams is in his element exploring this sensitive territory, and he nails the way boys act and think when they're about their pranks and forbidden pleasures. The bumps, you ask? I didn't think the 1st-person Julius POV (it jumps between them) always worked. Sometimes you'd get a pile-up of staccato-lines like so:
"I'm barfing.
Are you ok says Fall.
Pwuh I say. Plah.
Are you ok.
I love you I say.
Plee."
But then there's also writing like this, from Noel's point of view:
"I watched Julius play soccer sometimes. My toes got cold. I remember the smell of the leaves. I remember black mud, black-limbed trees, darkening autumn days, and Julius a relentless force on the field, finding a way like water around stones. I remember thinking that the way to reach a goal was by finding fissures between people that no one else could see."
It's too bad that what begins as a modern twist on a familiar genre takes such a bizarre turn. Noel, it turns out, is creepy. He goes for the fissures, all right -- like a hammer to a stress fracture. The weirdness of his obsessions soon take over the book, muting the "fun" Julius and Fall scenes. Despite this, I loved a lot of the writing and even got caught up in the investigation once Fall disappeared, but overall I felt that McAdam missed an opportunity with this work. It could've stuck to more mundane subtleties rather than giving itself up to crime-drama psychology. And yes, if you insist on tight endings (gift-wrapped with a bow), you'll be disappointed. Endings are tough, though. In any event, distractions or no, I'm sticking with 4-stars and advising fans of the prep school genre to "buy in."
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Decent story, but not very reader-friendly, July 4, 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
"Fall" is set at a prestigious boarding school in Canada, where two roommates slowly get to know each other. The two roommates are Julius - a guy who has everything together, is loved by everyone, and has the most beautiful girl on campus (Fallon, aka Fall); and Noel (aka Wink b/c of his lazy eye) - an introverted, quiet guy who doesn't really have any friends and seemingly doesn't care about that, but internally, has a huge crush on Fall, and what seems like a man-crush on Julius. Their relationship as roommates, and later friends, develops throughout the story until Julius's girlfriend Fall goes missing. One of the main things I didn't like about this book is that the point-of-view kept switching between Noel, Julius and William (Julius's ambassador father's driver), and it was confusing at times to figure out who was speaking until mid-way through the chapter. Also, during most of Julius's chapters, the writing was as if someone was actually talking which was completely hard to follow. The first chapter of this book (which I later found out was a Julius chapter) entirely captures what I did NOT like about the book as a whole. Also, after finishing the book, I still have NO idea what the purpose of the William chapters were - they could have been removed from the book and not have made an ounce of difference. Overall, the story itself was decent, but I did not like how it was written...it just wasn't very reader-friendly. I probably would have rated the book a 2.5 if I were allowed to give half stars.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Falling For "Fall"--A Disturbing And Deeply Human Story of Friendship and Obsession, June 3, 2009
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Colin McAdam's "Fall" charts the territory of a thriller as it contemplates the relationship of three boarding school students in the throes of love, friendship, and even obsession. Initially, standard character types are presented. There is Julius, star athlete and popular student, Noel, an awkward loner and Julius's new roommate, and Fall, Julius's lovely girlfriend. But, far from being a conventional thriller--"Fall" aspires to and achieves so much more! Told from multiple viewpoints, McAdam has crafted an extraordinary character study that sets up certain expectations about the three principles and then shifts and subverts those ideas as the story progresses. It is surprising, confounding, touching, and deeply human.
No one is quite as they seem as they struggle for acceptance and try to fit into the adult world. From the interior monologue of Julius, we see the stream-of-consciousness evolution of a boy to a man. From Fall's story, we see a young woman wrestling with first love and the nature of her own beauty. And from Noel's narrative, surprising truths of a darker nature start to evolve. While what happens may sometimes seem shocking, it always feels true. So the haunting "Fall" is a simple story that's likely to linger with you, I know it has with me. Definitely recommended, McAdam has created one of the more astute psychological portraits of adolescence that I've come across in some time.
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