5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
You can't turn the pages fast enough, May 9, 2007
This review is from: Nerve Damage: A Novel (Hardcover)
"Sometimes the dead live on in your dreams."
A nice start to the first suspense novel I've opened in years.
I pressed on.
It turns out that Roy Valois is dreaming of Delia. He reaches out to touch her hair. Ooops. It's Jen in his bed, and, first thing in the morning, she has news: She's been offered a job running the ski school in Keystone. That's in Colorado. Right now, they're living in Vermont. A significant distance. Especially because they've been dating for two years --- and marriage is very much on his mind. Roy calls and reserves a table at the town's best restaurant for dinner a few days later. This won't be like the last time, in the tiny Washington apartment, when he just blurted out his proposal to Delia.
I look up. I've read two-and-a-half pages in less than a minute, and I already know a great deal.
In another paragraph I know more. Roy lives in a barn he bought with Delia. He's a sculptor, working in large slabs of metal. Delia was an economist at the Hobbes Institute, a think tank that focuses on third world problems.
But enough of the past. Roy's working on a masterpiece that he's named after his late wife. (She died, Peter Abrahams tells us almost as an aside, fifteen years ago, in a helicopter crash off Nicaragua on a trip to convince farmers to plant pineapples.) He also plays amateur hockey. And is soon reminded of a famous goal he scored in college.
Will that glorious undergraduate moment be mentioned in his New York Times obituary --- or will it be art art art? Obits of the famous generally are written years, even decades, before the actual death; a local kid volunteers to hack into the newspaper's files. He finds Roy's obit: no mention of the hockey goal. But there is an incorrect description of Delia. According to the Times, she was employed by the United Nations, not the Hobbes Institute. Roy's annoyed by that mistake. So he calls the Times reporter and....
And now an hour has gone by and I've read a third of the book. (This doesn't happen when I'm reading James Salter.) Another 90 minutes and I'm done. The sun is now angled low, the afternoon has cooled. But I've read an exciting book and I'm red hot.
Who is Peter Abrahams? Stephen King's favorite suspense writer. Well, lucky me: I started at the top. I check out his web site, where he lists his literary influences:
Nabokov is one of my favorites. The sheer brilliance! He makes it look so easy....Closer to my own field, I've been influenced by Graham Greene...
Greene, I'd expect. But Nabokov? To love "Pale Fire" and then write suspense thrillers?
I'm not going to argue. Peter Abrahams has written 18 novels so far. A cursory scan of the reviews suggests they're uniformly superior. I have my work --- correction: my pleasure --- cut out for me.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Abrahams, the Consummate Pro, June 21, 2007
This review is from: Nerve Damage: A Novel (Hardcover)
In an interview, Peter Abrahams once said that his one main rule for writing is, "Do something original on every page." NERVE DAMAGE is another excellent illustration of this rule in practice. The story of an artist racing against terminal illness to discover the truth behind his wife's death, the novel is insanely smart and furiously compelling with dialogue that crackles like a sparkler; but as always the real treat is the writing. Never fancy, always cat-quick and often snort-your-soda funny, Abraham's prose moves like judo across the page, using the weight of the reader's interest to propel the tale forward without ever seeming to break a sweat. His protagonist's vision of the world, precisely observed and wholly unsentimental, rings fundamentally true, and Abrahams uses the least assuming details to enormously successful effect.
If NERVE DAMAGE is your first Abrahams book, I envy you -- it's like walking into a bar, sitting down and having the Beatles in their prime come up onstage for an unannounced set of their greatest songs, playing for two hours and packing up their kits. Abrahams is the consummate pro.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
3.5 Stars - A race against time, June 12, 2007
This review is from: Nerve Damage: A Novel (Hardcover)
First Sentence: Sometimes the dead live on in your dreams.
Metal sculptor Roy Valois has just finished a masterful piece of sculpture he names for his late wife, Delia and plays an exceptional game during his local hockey night. When talking with a friend and wondering whether his goal that night would someday be mentioned in his obituary, he solicits the help of a young geek to look it up. However, his surprise comes when he sees they've listed Delia's job as being with the UN and not with a private think tank. In trying to clear up this "mistake," the reporter is murdered and it soon become clear someone doesn't want Roy questioning the past.
Abrahams writes very good psychological/political suspense. In Roy, he has created a character for whom we quickly come to care. He is realistic both as an artist who sees the flaws in his work where others see the perfections, and as a man who still loves playing hockey, still grieves the loss of his wife and is thrown into desperation when he finds he has an incurable cancer. Abrahams has created an excellent race against time and conveys Roy's frustration beautifully. The plot, as the story progresses, does go over the top but it certainly didn't slow down my reading. If you're looking for an exciting one-sitting read or a great airplane book, this is it.
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