Customer Reviews

Gone for Good (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Gone for Good combines the elements of fantasy and fiction in this thrilling novel about a rock star who crash lands on an uncharted island and is made part of a mysterious community, from which he is not permitted to leave. The license Childress takes with his real characters makes this among the most unusual, and most satisfying books I have read in a long time. It is different, but in a good way from most of the best selling garbage put out there. If you are looking for the next John Grisham book, don't buy this book, but if you are looking for something that challenges conventions without the pretensions of many unique authors, put it in your shopping cart NOW. Despite the fantastic elements to the story, Childress keeps the story grounded in his kooky reality because the characters are above all, very human.

A fantasy novel that stretches your suspension of disbelief; a rock star that can fly, become invisible, swing through the trees like an ape and an old man that can make things rise into the air at will, including an airplane.

On this magical Island, Ben "Superman" Willis slowly discovered famous people that he knew had died years before, such as Jimmy Hoffa that barbecued chicken for guests. Can Ben ever escape and get back to his family or does he want to after reading that his wife has married his hippy manager.

I wondered how Ben got his pilot's license since he made multiple mistakes and got lost when he was flying from El Paso to his next concert in Phoenix. The writing was good and I liked Ben Jr. and wanted him to find his daddy that disappeared years before. His only clue was a poorly made Polaroid picture, found in a bottle floating thousands of miles away, that showed an Island with twin peaks.

It was an enjoyable easy read when you don't have a thriller close by.

Mark Childress has a way of writing that makes you believe that some of his fantastic events can actually happen. He writes so matter-of-factly that we as readers say OK, so the head in the tupperware container is talking or OK, so Marilyn Monroe is alive on an island. But what drew me to this book, the ideas of celebrities alive somewhere remote, is not what glued me to it. The heart of the story is what pulls us apart as families - everything that gets in the way of "reaching" our family, so much so that one needs to be invisible to the rest of the world to be visible to his son or wife. I loved reading this book.

I also read this on the beach in Costa Rica, so I identified with the theme of paradise.

Read it, love it, savor it. This book is really fun to read.

Have to say that I agree with the reviewer below - this book has taken a really unfair slam from some critics. It's brilliant and, in light of recent events, rather prescient too. I mean -- a famous guy disappears in his light plane and the media go nuts? Sound familiar? Read it and you'll have to enjoy it...

I don't know why this book didn't get raves and leap to the top of bestseller lists. It's a brilliant combination of the Southern Gothic and the Latin American magic realist tradition. Twenty years from now people will look back in wonder at the lack of attention for this wonderful book.

Mark Childress has never failed to entertain me. His latest effort is another fine addition to his catalog. His use of prose continually amazes me. A farce and satire,this book made me laugh out loud a couple of times and kept me entertained until the end.

Some of the most famous deceased people of the 20th century are not only alive, but living on a remote island enjoying Jimmy Hoffa's specialty, barbecue chicken. It starts out as a marvelous fantasy. But Childress's tale loses steam in the second half. The reader is just asked to accept too much of the improbable. Samuel Taylor Coleridge's concept of the "willing suspension of disbelief" is strained to the maximum here. The book is worth reading for the exercise in fantasy the first half provides, with the understanding the second half will be a let-down.

After reading Crazy in Alabama, I discovered this book and was looking forward to another fun read by Mark Childress. It is a quirky stretch of fantasy and imagination and you get into it pretty fast. I enjoyed the discovery of new celebrity residents of the mysterious island, and seeing some of the theories about the death and disappearance of these people put down on paper in an almost believable form, but about 2/3 of the way through I found myself skipping pages. You could say it's a page turner, but not for the right reasons. I just wanted to get ON with it. The only character I really cared about much at all was Ben Junior. I wanted him to find his dad.

It got fragmented, a bit garbled and almost too crazy for me toward the end. It was almost a feeling that Childress had laid out this wide expanse of story but didn't quite know what to do with it after awhile. It was good to see Ben Willis discover his soul, so to speak, finding what was really important in life after all the craziness. But bottom line, I got a little tired of the whole thing before it was over and was a bit disappointed.

This book had the makings of being great, but turned into a fragmented disassociative bit of nonsense. It is a shame too, because if anyone should have been able to pull off "magic", Mark Childress should have. A real disappointment.