Minions of the Moon [Paperback]

Richard Bowes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 5, 2000

Kevin Grierson has a Shadow with a mind of its own. It likes thrills, it likes power, it likes the rush of drugs and danger. From the suburbs of Boston to the streets of New York, from the false glamour of advertising to the dark glamour of hustling and drug-dealing. Grierson's Shadow keeps him walking the edge of destruction and madness. Then a simple robbery goes horribly wrong. With the help of a flawed saint named Leo Dunn, Grierson struggles to banish his Shadow, and succeeds. Temporarily. Years later, sober and settled, at peace with his world, Kevin Grierson meets his Shadow again. And this time it won't go away.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

When customers seek their memories in Half Remembered Things, Kevin Grierson's New York shop, they gawk at the price tags attached to the toys of their childhood. Kevin reflects, "The past is always just a bit more expensive than we thought possible."

And so it is for Kevin, a successful middle-aged antiques dealer whose past is exacting a price: he journeys down dark memories of peddling his young body to strangers, destroying himself with booze and speed, striving to become predator rather than prey on the streets of New York in the 1960s. The problem, as he sees it, is that his Shadow--more than an alternate self but less than an independent doppelgänger--is the bad guy, the one who would bring back the old habits. But his Shadow is not purely evil, and Kevin is not purely good. The two of them have much to learn if they ever hope to be reconciled.

Minions of the Moon is an absorbing, beautifully wrought novel of dark fantasy--its complex web of stories told in interweaving strands, its dreamlike images balanced by a clean, matter-of-fact prose style. --Fiona Webster --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Life can be brutal for a boy growing up on the streets of Boston at mid-century, especially if he's gay and his mother's crazy, and particularly if he's haunted by a doppleganger, a phantom double. Kevin Grierson grew to adulthood in a tough Irish-American family with uncles who were prone to beat him up for his own good. Making it through college and moving to New York, Kevin tries unsuccessfully to balance a career writing advertising copy with a secret existence centered on drugs, alcohol and promiscuous, tawdry, often dangerous sex. His doppleganger lurks constantly in the background, manifesting itself whenever Kevin gets in trouble, giving him bad advice, hijacking his body for his own ends whenever he's too drunk or too stoned to resist. As the years go by, Kevin lives from one crisis to the next, struggling constantly with both his double and his addictions. Then he discovers that he's not alone. There are other people with supernatural powers in the world, and some of them aren't very nice. Worse still, there's a mysterious group called the Sojourners who seem interested in collecting Kevin and his double for their own secret, presumably unwholesome, purposes. In his first novel in 10 years, Bowes (Feral Cell) has produced a well-written and unusually gritty urban fantasy of a sort likely to appeal to fans of the work of Charles de Lint. Although the novel takes place over a period of decades, there isn't really much plot here. Grierson, however, is a fascinating character whose life consists of a series of small, grim and involving urban adventures.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (February 5, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312872283
• ISBN-13: 978-0312872281
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,678,827 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars NIGHTMARISH, COMPELLING, AND RIVETING!, March 27, 2000

By 

Christian "Writer/Human" (Colorado) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Minions of the Moon (Hardcover)

Kevin Grierson has a problem. A really, really big problem. His shadow has a mind of its own. And a life of its own. Drugs, murder, felonious mayhem...only a few of the items on the list which Grierson would rather distance himself from. But he can't. He's as anchored to his shadow as his shadow is to him...and it keeps him bobbing only fractions away from the black depths of certain hell. If only he could break loose, free himself of the onerous weight his shadow puts on him. The responsibility. But, in the hands of Richard Bowes, one is never quite certain who is who throughout this compelling and nightmarish novel. At once a novel about addictions, being gay, and finding ones true self, MINIONS OF THE MOON is like an acid-flashback one can never escape. Grierson's plight and ultimate redeeming journey through the Hell's Kitchen (suitably used for the name alone) of his youth and adulthood takes the reader on one carnival ride after another. One never knows whether the shadow is the person or the person is the shadow. This is one read that will keep you interested and intrigued until the very last word. You might even find yourself searching for more pages after the last one has been turned, just to satisfy your curiousity! Highly recommended.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fine And Brave Book, April 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Minions of the Moon (Hardcover)

This is one of the most remarkable books I've seen in a long time. Remarkable not just in the quality of the writing - which is extraordinarily fine, but no surprise to anyone who has already read the author's short fiction in the SF and fantasy magazines - but in the tremendous courage that must have been required to write it at all.

It is obvious that this story is based on personal experience of the most painful sort - the kind that most of us would want to forget and hope no one else ever found out. Yet Bowes has had the guts to bring it all up and show it to us, so that he can share with us the things he has learned from his experiences; and perhaps help us learn too.

Not that this is a didactic or boring book; on the contrary, the story is an exciting and fascinating one, an exploration of the Doppelganger concept, rarely seen in fantastic fiction because it is so hard to handle well. But besides entertaining us, Richard Bowes is trying to tell us some things, about the split nature in all of us and about how we have to come to terms with our darker selves.

This is, in fact, one of those books that can be read at many different levels - as a straightforward supernatural thriller, as a psychological exploration of the human identity, as a symbolic treatment of schizophrenia and addiction, and many other things. It will repay re-reading; you will find things you didn't notice the first time around.

Homophobes may be offended by the frank and unapologetic treatment of the narrator's sexual development; some gays, on the other hand, may not like the de-glamorized descriptions of such things as child prostitution. But this is above all an HONEST book; a demonstration that, as Hemingway pointed out, the story that is made up can be truer than any mere narration of facts.

Richard Bowes is a fine writer and a brave man. I salute him.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful, horrible, magnificent, July 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Minions of the Moon (Hardcover)

I couldn't put this book down. Bowes is one of the best writers I've encountered in years. He gives us a tour, vividly evoked, of some of the more hideous realities of our time, but solidly in there with the horrors are courage, compassion and redemption. Bowes is a writer's writer. His evocation of a miserable Boston childhood and a horrific coming-of-age in Hell's Kitchen couldn't be more truthful, and nevertheless exhilarate. Through this world angels also walk, and strange illuminations. His hero survives, endures, and keeps the faith against tremendous odds. You won't find sleek and phony gothic figures in Minions of the Moon; there isn't a lie or a word of self-indulgence or hackwork in it. You will find demons in plenty, acute human pain, joy and hope. This book is good for the soul.