The Narcissist's Daughter: A Novel [Paperback]

Craig Holden (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 10, 2008

In his earlier acclaimed novels, Craig Holden created a thrilling vision of America that was at once lyrical and dark. Now, with The Narcissist's Daughter, he expands that vision in his most accomplished and controversial work to date, a drama about the collision between two families, both riddled with desires but from opposite sides of the tracks.

From the outside the Kesslers appear to have it all: Dr. Ted Kessler is a decorated veteran who now runs the lab at a large medical center. He and his wife, Joyce, live with their daughter, Jessi, in a beautiful house in the estate section of an Ohio city in the 1970s. Ted is widely respected as a clinician, researcher, manager, and businessman. But when he resolves to mentor an ambitious working-class student, this idyllic little world is threatened.

Syd Redding, the gruff, streetwise narrator of The Narcissist's Daughter, has no plan in mind for the Kesslers. He's a bored pre-med student with few prospects, a failure for a stepfather, and a sister who seems to be following his example. Soon after he meets Kessler's wife and daughter, he finds himself ensnared in the secret machinations of this magnetic family on the brink of unraveling.

The Narcissist's Daughter is the compulsively readable and suspenseful story of a simple affair that blossoms into obsession, exploitation, and finally, a passion for revenge that threatens to ruin the lives of everyone involved.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Following Holden's outstanding breakout novel The Jazz Bird, comes this complex, moody study of class tension, sexual obsession and murder set in 1970s Cleveland. Daniel "Syd" Redding, a young working-class pre-med student, listens to the Ramones and dreams of destroying the life of his rich, egomaniac boss, Dr. Ted Kessler. Working nights in the hospital, Redding comes under the spell of Kessler's sexy young wife, Joyce, who lures him into a kinky affair that soon turns ugly, leaving him devastated and even more intent on vengeance. Redding next targets the Kessler's 17-year-old daughter, Jessi, whom he starts dating, much to the dismay of her parents. What begins as simply a ploy to hurt the Kesslers intensifies as Redding, despite his intentions, finds himself becoming more and more attached to the girl. The ensuing entanglement leads to murder. The story abruptly advances 20 years (and here the narrative loses some of its immediacy), as we learn that Syd and Jessi have married, started a family and embarked on successful careers of their own. The Reddings' happy, comfortable life hits a snag, however, when a construction crew unearths human remains down by the river. Holden is a writer to watch, and this is an intelligent, if slightly uneven, suspense novel that should win him a larger audience.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Pathology, in every sense of the word, is at the core of Holden's fifth novel. Not only is it the chosen profession of narrator Syd Redding, a 23-year-old premed student, and his antagonist, Dr. Ted Kessler, but pathology also characterizes key behavior here. After well-heeled Kessler virtually pushes Syd, who's from a blue-collar background, into the arms of his wife, Joyce, the young man discovers that he has been sucked into a sick game. Seeking revenge, Syd turns his attention to the Kesslers' 17-year-old daughter, Jessi, arousing her father's fury. Concerned primarily about his job as a tech in Kessler's lab, Syd soon finds himself and those around him in a world of trouble that comes to a shocking conclusion. Holden, who sets this in his hometown of Toledo and gives Syd his own youthful vocational interest, adds a touch of masochism to the sex and violence (none of it gratuitous) for a page-turning combination, exceptional for its well-crafted characters and solid, skillful plotting. This is a thriller with staying power, not easily forgotten. Michele Leber
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (June 10, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416572783
• ISBN-13: 978-1416572787
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,345,131 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

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Narcissistically Pleasing, February 20, 2005

By 

Charles W. Brice "Charlie Brice" (Pittsburgh, PA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Narcissist's Daughter: A Novel (Hardcover)

None other than Michael Ondaatji once heaped huge and unsolicited praise on a Craig Holden thriller (The River Sorrow), and one can see why. Holden's latest novel, The Narcissist's Daughter, could be the best example of a literary thriller that since Holden's last book, The Jazz Bird, or Graham Green's The Human Factor. The plot is as tight as it gets. Twenty-three year old Syd Redding is from the wrong side of the tracks, but he's trying to improve his lot. He's an intelligent guy and wants to become a doctor. While taking his pre-med courses he gets a job in a hospital run by Dr. Ted Kessler, a respected war veteran and an influential physician who could help Syd not only get into medical school, but excel in his field thereafter. At Dr. Kessler's suggestion, Syd signs on for the nightshift where he meets and soon beds the beautiful and seductive Joyce Kessler, the doctor's wife. This affair goes horribly sour and, when it does, Syd finds himself humiliated and ravaged with a desire for revenge. Jessi Kessler, Ted and Joyce's seventeen-year-old daughter, becomes the means to his enraged and obsessed end. He begins a torrid affair with young Jessi and through this affair Holden introduces the reader, at first subtly, and then with ever increasing intensity, into a world of perversity that rivals anything DeSade or Poe could conjure. Much like Chuck Palahniuk eased us into the ever-increasing psychosis of Tyler Hayden in Fight Club, Holden's skillfully honed discipline and restraint brings the perverse into sharper and sharper focus as we travel through the twists and turns of Syd Redding's appetite for revenge. Holden's rendering of Syd Redding's perversities gives credence to Freud's dictum that wherever one finds sadism; masochism isn't far behind (and vice versa).

With his readers, however, Holden is neither sadistic nor masochistic-only gratifying. The Narcissist's Daughter contains some stunning prose; prose that puts Holden in the company of Ondaatji, John Fowles, and Jeffery Lent. Syd Redding's description of waking, as an adult, in his childhood house before taking a run serves as an example.

"The workday sunlight and empty house I woke into later on the weekdays I didn't have early classes felt like a place I'd only come to visit yet I found some peace there. I began to walk through the tight neighborhoods in the afternoons, then to run-I'd once been a halfback and a sprinter; now I came to crave what opened in me only after a couple of miles. When you start, the legs ache and the chest burns from the cigarettes and the chilled air, but soon the muscles relax into that state of spring-like tension and the chest opens and deepens and finally the mind stops registering pain and begins to take in the world in a way that you otherwise feel only when you are stoned or in a city you've never seen before, when the sky is clear and hard and every detail, the faces of women and the shapes of buildings and the sounds of language and traffic, is exotic and beautiful and unspeakably fresh" (p. 36).

Combine Holden's skill for writing elegant, flowing, and poetic prose with plot twists that keep you up at night and an ending that surprises, shocks, and yet seems inevitable, and you have the quintessential literary thriller. The Narcissist's Daughter is, by far, Holden's best effort to date.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Thoughtful Nail-Biter From Holden, March 7, 2005

By 

Dave (Toronto) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Narcissist's Daughter: A Novel (Hardcover)

I used to wonder when I would finally find a writer who did crime and suspense fiction with the story-telling ability of Michael Connelly and the fluid, skilled prose of McGuane or Banks. And then I happened across Four Corners of Night by Craig Holden, an absolute masterpiece of a book; a police procedural, family saga and meditation on grief and loyalty all
rolled into one. Holden's latest novel, The Narcissist's Daughter proves beyond a doubt that this guy can flat-out write, entertain and never tell the same story twice. Holden's fifth novel is an intelligent book that moves at a break-neck pace, which is a shame in some respects because Holden's prose is strong and as clear as morning air, and worth lingering on. The
tale is narrated by Syd Redding, an intelligent, working class pre-med student with a chip on his shoulder. Syd juggles a full time job in a blood lab at night to fund his schooling during the day. Doctor Ted Kessler is Syd's supervisor and would-be mentor, a decorated Korean War vet and quietly intimidating man. Syd's family is dysfunctional and still hurting over the untimely death of Syd's mother. Holden drags the reader into the interiors of both the Reddings and the Kesslers domestic situations, weaving his tale with great balance and intrigue. As Syd gets to know the Kesslers, he becomes infatuated with Dr.Kessler's wife Joyce, and becomes involved with her. In the hands of a lesser writer, this could be the recipe for a
paint-by-numbers thriller. But in The Narcissist's Daughter it's the trumpet call for a suspenseful and intricate tale of deceit and revenge. In 228 pages Holden delivers an acute character study and gripping tale that ought to find its way onto the big screen in short order. His previous
novel, The Jazz Bird, based on actual events surrounding infamous bootlegger George Remus, is also a gem.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Graduate Meets James M. Cain, January 29, 2005

By 

Ubu Roi - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Narcissist's Daughter: A Novel (Hardcover)

Holden's strength has always been his prose, and the Fitzgeraldian lyricism of his words pull the reader effortlessly through this book. There's A LOT of sex in "The Narcissist's Daughter," however, and although at first it seems appropriate for the "Graduate" meets James M. Cain plot, eventually a few too many fetishistic variations make the novel read more like "The Kinsey Report" than "The Postman Always Rings Twice." It's that overdose of perversity coupled with a less than sympathetic protagonist that may leave a bad taste in the reader's mouth even as the convoluted plot races to it's appropriately shocking ending.