Customer Reviews

Memoirs of a Master Forger

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

 

 

I had high hopes for this, based on reviews. Those hopes were met-- at least they were sort of met. The great part about the book is that it has so many interesting ideas and angles that I spent many pages marveling at the coolness. The less great part about the book is that it has so many interesting ideas and angles that a number of them felt undeveloped and kind of thrown away.

So much to like-- Heaney's career as a master forger and how that works is great. I wanted more of that. I liked how he developed his demons-- always a little bit open whether they really existed or not. This is speculative fiction on the edge, more a landscape of the mind than horror. The subtlety and restraint is really well done.

There's so much that's nice here that I feel guilty about not loving it more wholeheartedly. It somehow just never knit together for me in a way that I wanted it to do. I'd still recommend it, perhaps just not quite as strongly.

(This was published in the UK under the name of William Heaney, the main character of the book and ostensible author of the memoirs. But it's really Graham Joyce.)

'Memoirs of a Master Forger' grabs you from the blurb and pulls you into a story full of expectation.

William Heaney (Graham Joyce) writes a recount of his life in coming to terms with his demons and as these demons mostly stay just out of eyeshot the story captivates the reader in wanting to read more but not quite feeling satisfied.

Very well written with flashbacks being woven in successfully albeit tantalisingly fragmented. The book does a good job in wanting the reader to want more and I must admit that although not being too excited by this book I am keen to read more about William Heaney and his demons.

Graham Joyce (William Heaney) has a rich, funny, superstitous, sexy, absurdist account of longing, mistakes, sacrifice, and of attempted redemption that should involve and stir most readers. The first book of Joyce's I read was _The Facts of Life_, and I must say his fiction only continues to delight and engage me.