Martin Sloane [Import] [Paperback]

Michael Redhill (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Anchor Canada; 1st Printing edition (2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385259875
• ISBN-13: 978-0385259873
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,733,452 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A surprising book, with personal messages for each reader., June 16, 2002

By 

Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
(COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Martin Sloane: A Novel (Paperback)

I can't recall a recent book in which so many professional reviewers find so many different messages at the heart of the story... It's not that Redhill is vague or obscure; in fact, multiple messages are probably what he was hoping for.

Integrating all these themes into a deceptively simple story, Redhill emphasizes that for each of us, our past always shapes our understanding of the present. Martin Sloane, a fifty-ish artist who creates enigmatic boxes, and Jolene Iolas, a college student who falls in love with him and his artwork, speak to the reader unpretentiously about the past and present, and one quickly identifies with them, falling into the rhythm of their alternating voices. Martin's inexplicable disappearance from Jolene's apartment and Jolene's renewed search for him many years later provide a framework for the story, along with unlimited opportunities for the author to explore themes of love and loss, home and family, death and dying, childhood and memory, and, most of all, our personal identities as a result of our separate pasts. As the reader filters the separate and combined stories of Martin and Jolene through his/her own past experiences, s/he also distills from the author's themes whatever personal messages are relevant, pertinent, or even unique for him.

Redhill's background as a poet is obvious here. His ability to compress allows him to pack short scenes with big meanings, to ensure that every detail advances his story and themes, and to create fresh images which allow the reader to see common experiences in new ways. Wonderful, pithy observations keep the reader energized and involved on many levels, while an intriguing mystery maintains the suspense. Though a transition might help to avoid some minor confusion (eventually resolved) in a couple of scenes, and a few questions of character remain unresolved, this is an amazing debut novel, one of the year's most enjoyable for me. Mary Whipple

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the finest novels I have ever read, August 31, 2003

By 

Martin Ternouth (Dorchester, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Martin Sloane: A Novel (Paperback)

I read my first adult novel something over forty years ago. Since then I have read three or four books a week.

Martin Sloane is quite simply one of the finest novels I have ever read, crafted by a magnificent intelligence. Read it once for the story, then twice more page by page to pick up the textures and evocations and resonances. Then read it again - and again next year.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enigmatic powerful literature, February 10, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Martin Sloane: A Novel (Paperback)

Martin Sloane is a novel worthy of the Pulitzer Prize, Booker Award, Governor's General Award and/or any other noteworthy award for distinctive, discriptive, and evocative literature. The novel tugs at the central core of the reader's heart and mind by taking you into the interior and intertwining lives of the main characters, Martin, Joleen, and Molly. The author, writes with deft clarity and an uncanny understanding of human foibles,and evokes powerful emotions of happiness and pain in the reader.

Martin is an artist with a deep and dark past with an erstwhile desire to come to grips with his past when he embarks upon a love affair with a young woman who might have been his soul-mate, had he allowed himself to accept the depth of her love and understanding. Unfortunately, the meddling and controlling influence of Molly, Joleen's best-friend dooms the relationship by grabbing at the fragile psyche of Martin through a jealous encounter with him when she attempts to expose to him his weaknesses and motivations during a visit to the couple's home after years of separation after college from Joleen. Molly, thereafter, embarks upon a vicarious desire to live through the lives of these two people by trying to re-establish a connection between them that spans from the US to Ireland all the while trying to mend her shattered friendship with Joleen. Joleen, glistens as the true survivor as all who read this book will find.

This is a novel worthy of reading for those who love good literature. Martin Sloane was a reading experience of exceptional magnitude that I did not beyond my wildest expectations hope to find between the covers of this marvelous novel when I purchased it.