3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wow! What a page turner!, August 23, 2007
This review is from: The Interloper (Paperback)
This is probably the best first novel to hit the book stores since Brett Easton Ellis's "Less Than Zero" in 1985. It's a bona fide page turner.
The cover blurb sets the reader up to expect a revenge novel: The protagonist is out to avenge his brother-in-law's senseless murder, a loss that is destroying two families. Antoine Wilson's story takes the form of a modern epistolary novel--one that depends on letters to set out the plot. But book has much more in store. There are some nice plot twists that make the book a compelling "read". While the writing style isn't immortal literature, the simple, direct narrative keeps bumping along with a few thigh-slapping jokes thrown in.
There are a few lapses of editing, and some of the voices don't seem quite right (hard boiled criminals aren't usually literary types). However, these are minor glitches in a great first novel.
This is an excellent "beach book" or a way to happily "kill" a trans-continental flight.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fast, clever, well-crafted, creepy and... funny?, June 2, 2007
This review is from: The Interloper (Paperback)
First of all, The Interloper is just an amazingly fun and gripping read. It's fast-paced, or perhaps it's that the twists and turns keep arriving before you can get comfortable. The book explores the unsatisfying nature of justice, the disruption of tragedy and the unpredictability of poking a tiger in a cage - dark matter in a surprisingly funny way. It's a real testament to Wilson's skill that his characters invent characters within the novel that have carefully intended degrees of believability. Owen Patterson has to be a full, rich and complete fictional person to create a Lily Hazelton who is just a hair short for the story to work. And work it does!
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Riveting Psychological Rollercoaster Ride, May 20, 2008
This review is from: The Interloper (Paperback)
What kind of man describes himself as "a solid B?" That's what the main character, Owen Patterson, does in the first paragraph of Antoine Wilson's debut novel, "The Interloper." You've got to ask yourself what's wrong with someone who'd say something like that. He arouses your curiosity. There seems to be something not quite right about this fellow, and it turns out you're right.
Antoine Wilson has written a very intriguing and entertaining novel. It's a taut, fast-paced psychological thriller about grief, revenge, and obsession gone awry. If you're looking for something to keep your attention riveted for a day on the beach, or a long plane flight, this might be the perfect book. It's a short, intense, psychological rollercoaster ride--the effect is pure unadulterated enjoyment!
The writing is unusually good for a debut novel--it is sparse and fresh with nothing adorned or contrived. Laugh-out-loud dark humor pops up unexpectedly throughout offering welcomed relieve to balance the growing tension. The author's writing style seems to straddle nicely the space between popular and literary fiction. Clearly, the author aim is to entertain, but he does so with extraordinarily good style. If you've got twelve minutes to view and listen to an eerily inviting and well-done online video clip where the sound track is taken word-for-word from chapter three of this novel, Google "interloper antoine wilson chapter three" and you'll find the Google Video link right near the top. It's a well-done video! Although I'd finished the book by the time I heard about this little film, I found listening to it greatly enhanced my appreciation for the author's prose. Evidently, the author's prose sounds better than it reads. In the end, I'm afraid this little film will do a far better job of convincing you whether or not to buy the book than I can in this review. Along the way, you'll be able to hear more detail about the plot, determine if you like the author's prose style, and get a good feeling about the eerie and bone-chilling tone of the novel as a whole.
From the beginning, the reader gets the overwhelming impression that things are not going to turn out well for the main character. He's chosen a strange, convoluted, and dangerous path to balance the scales of justice and obtain his own private revenge. As we watch him careen along this path, his obsession grows, and his sanity ebbs.
Don't expect this novel to deliver any deep insights into the nature of human behavior. This work is about entertainment, not psychological revelation. Modern evolutionary psychologists have fully discredited the concept of revenge as a mental disease state, but this is still widely believed by the general public and naturally makes a great story...so, if you tend toward the scientific or academic, I recommend that you just sit back, disengage your analytical brain, and enjoy the unfolding spectacle. If you do, you'll find it almost impossible to resist the tug of this compelling drama.
I suspect that men may enjoy this novel slightly more than women. However, as a female reviewer, I had a great time reading this book. In particular, I felt myself sympathizing with Owen's alter ego Lily Hazelton. She was my favorite character in the book. Typically, my tastes tend toward literary fiction, but I had no problem getting into this book and having a good time with it.
Personally, I will be very interested to see what type of book Antoine Wilson writes next. Is he going keep to the middle, or to swing closer toward the popular or literary? I have my guess, but I'll keep it to myself. He is a talented new writer--someone to keep my eyes on in the future.
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