Kaspian Lost [Mass Market Paperback]

Richard Grant (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 3, 2001

Not even Kaspian himself knows precisely what happened to him during his unaccounted-for ninety-six hours -- though he does remember a light, three evil leprechauns, his dead father, and a frighteningly seductive angel-like being. The adults who control the sullen, disaffected teenager's immediate destiny view his disappearance -- and his silence about it -- as acts of passive-aggressive rebellion to be nipped in the proverbial bud.But Kaspian believes his memories and emotions are precious treasures belonging to him alone. Now he must staunchly defend them from his born-again stepmother, a megalomaniacal alternate education tsar, sexually ambiguous counselors, corrupt Washington politicos, and wacko ufo abduction theorists. Recent events suggest that the laws of what's possible on this living Earth are constantly changing. And Kaspian must find his own way into the heart of the Great Mystery.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Fifteen-year-old Kaspian Aaby walks out of a repressive summer camp for troubled teens and into the Maine woods. He awakens the next morning to find that four days have passed and he is 60 miles from where he should be. It was no dream, his strange nocturnal experience of mysterious beings that may be malevolent fairies or aliens, an angel, and the ghost of his dead father. Frightened, Kaspian's born-again stepmother exiles him to an authoritarian private school in Virginia, where obsessed alien-abduction investigators, extremist educational theorists, and paranoid politicians seek to use him for their own purposes. But Kaspian has allies and abilities that even he has not guessed at.

Richard Grant is the acclaimed author of Through the Heart (which received the Philip K. Dick Award), Tex and Molly in the Afterlife, and In the Land of Winter (in which Kaspian plays a small but crucial role). --Cynthia Ward --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Grant's (In the Land of Winter) acute ear for adolescent angst and a plot a step or two left of reality lift this coming-of-age tale a few inches out of the pimply preoccupations and surging hormones that dominate the genre. Stuck in an Accelerated Skills Acquisition Camp by his ferociously fundamentalist stepmother, Kaspian saunters one night into an Otherworld beneath a hill, where three wicked leprechauns lead him to an angelic libido-rocking girl in white. Waking four days later about 60 miles from camp, Kaspian spends the rest of the novel trying to preserve the memory of his supernatural excursion and piece together his personality despite being shanghaied to sinister Mr. Winot's franchised American Youth Academy in Virginia, near Washington. Kaspian hides his mysterious experience from all the adults who try to strip it from himApredatory psychiatrist Thera Boot, militant UFO expert Weeb Eugley, a well-meaning gay Episcopal seminarian, even an artist who specializes in comic strips starring photosynthetic bacteria. Grant scores some zingers on practically all of the phony strategies adults singly and collectively use to mold imaginative rebellious teenagers into prosaic clones of themselves, but his attempt to integrate all the theories about encounters with the Unknown bog down into a foggy, soggy Father-Knows-Best routine. Zippy language just isn't enough to carry Kaspian and his readers satisfyingly home from old Virginny. (June)
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

• Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: HarperTorch (July 3, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380799537
• ISBN-13: 978-0380799534
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,421,302 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Move over, Holden Caulfield!, October 1, 2000

By 

"terwell" (worthington, ma USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kaspian Lost (Hardcover)

While I liked his other works, Salinger's Catcher in the Rye always left me cold. Holden is such a jerk! Kaspian, however, in Kaspian Lost, is a thoughtful individual caught between conflicting (if unhelpfully sincere) versions of reality posed by the other characters, while searching out his own understanding of The Meaning of Life. Kaspian's Attitude Problem, his defense in the face of life's betrayal, is familiar to anyone who lost one or both parents at an early age. His encounters with alternative education in various guises are wonderfully, darkly comic. Grant holds the sacred cows of religion, new age philosphy, education, psycology, government committees, you name it, up to the harsh glare of both Kaspian's extreme need for honest explanations and healthy common sense and distrust of any rhetoric. What I especially love about Grant's books is that his characters are always three dimensional. Even Kaspian's stepmother, who few of us could tolerate, is trying to help him, betraying her own beliefs in sending him to AYA. The people Kaspian encounters, while representing different points of view, are lovingly drawn and interesting in their own right. The book is beautifully structured, giving equal weight to different points of view about reality. Kaspian is a child of the eighties and nineties (cell phones, computers etc), but this book and its characters could have been set in the late sixties. Certainly I recognized many of the characters! (Innana's momware hits a little too close to home!) Keeping Kaspian in the present avoids the issue of LSD and Altered States, which caused so much additional confusion for questing teens in the sixties and seventies. In Kaspian's world, drugs are firmly in the hands of The Establishment, to be avoided at all costs. I believe that Grant's ending is the only possible one, to keep the book honest, as it were. None of us have perfect fairy tale endings, but tragedy is also a luxury most of us can avoid. Kaspian's angst is understandable and not excessive, and he works away at resolving issues as best he can (which is better than a lot of us can do). All any of us can do is put one foot ahead of the other, moving forward into the unknown gift of time we possess. "Ready for whatever comes."

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Literary equivalent of that kid in "American Pie", July 26, 1999

By 

Pete ([e-mail]) (Illinois) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kaspian Lost (Hardcover)

I disagree with Harriet's summation in her above review -- anyone who's read his other stuff knows he always tries to do too much -- and usually pulls it off. So much is going on in "Through the Heart" and "Views From the Oldest House" that you basically become, well, intoxicated is the only way I can describe it -- but he ends up bringing it all to a (stunning) conclusion in both novels.

But I agree with her general assessment of "Kaspian Lost" -- a lot of ends remain loose. I don't want to give away plot, but many interesting subplots and conflicts remain unresolved. Hollywood ending? No, but an easy ending, that comes WAY TOO SOON, in my opinion.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good read despite some flaws, June 3, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Kaspian Lost (Hardcover)

To prepare him for his fall entrance to the American Youth Academy, Kaspian's stepmother ships him for the summer to the Accelerated Skills Acquisition Camp. Hating the place, especially his counselor, Kaspian walks away from everyone. As the area becomes dark, Kaspian headed to a light where he meets his deceased daddy and three malevolent leprechauns who tell him to come with them. He next meets a girl who tries to explain where he is.

Four days later, Kaspian reappears at the camp. He refuses to tell anyone where he has been as he desperately holds on to the memory of the alternate universe he visited. Adults believe Kaspian is rebelling and needs special attention. As he goes to the school that expects to change his behavior, Kaspian searches for himself even as he knows there are strange places to hide from the adults trying to destroy his essence.

KASPIAN LOST is a schizoid novel. When the novel concentrates on the duel between the lead protagonist and the adults know best crowd, the story is entertainingly brilliant. When the plot concentrates on otherworldly phenomena it loses direction. The two prime plots never fully merge, leaving readers wondering what happened. Kaspian is a tremendous character filled with teen angst and raging hormones. Richard Grant is a very talented writer whose tale is intriguing but tries to do too much.

Harriet Klausner