Customer Reviews

Pandora's Box

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I read an excerpt of this book in a magazine, then rushed to check it out at the nearest library. I was totally blown away by these characters. You will hate to put this book down. It's one of my all-time favorites. Elizabeth Gage is a master storyteller and this is by far her best work.

i am more impressed by the narration of this book. with fluidity and eloquence, Gage manages to build up a thorough characterisation of each major persona as well as the morbid atmosphere of overwhelming doom and fate.

Simon & Schuster did not want Elizabeth Gage. Joni Evans, then the wife of Dick Snyder (who later ran Little Golden Books into the ground, as was reported by Publishers Weekly many times), rejected the book on behalf of S&S. Bill Grose, the head of Pocket Books, somehow got around her, and S&S exercised its topping privilege to win Jay Garon's auction and acquire A GLIMPSE OF STOCKING for $511,500. Garon's contract was a good one: the author retained all rights except North American. With foreign sales, the earnings reached $1.4 million.

S&S didn't want Gage because they had Jackie Collins, that great talent, and Judith Michael, the nerdy husband-and-wife writing team. They were also offended that this first novelist from Glenview, Illinois, had so much more talent than their own authors.

At a lunch at the Four Seasons Restaurant, Michael Korda and his then special friend Trish Lande tried to get Gage and her husband to change to a writing husband-and-wife team like Judith Michael. Gage and her husband refused. S&S walked out of the Four Seasons while the author was in the ladies' room.
Later Korda tried to get Gage to take a lower royalty than the one specified in the contract. Gage refused.After six weeks of pressure. S&S caved.

The editing, by a faceless group of editors, was finished, the book was ready to go to press, when Korda turned the script over to Lande, saying "See if you can find anything wrong with this."

Lande covered the manuscript with coffee stains and cut out chapters which were crucial to the momentum of the book. In a long-distance conference call to Gage in Hawaii, Korda told her, "You have to make Trish's changes. You have to understand why it is so important that you surrender to us."

Gage lectured Korda and Lande over the phone about Chapter 4 of The Great Gatsby, which which Fitzgerald stops the action to simply give the names of the people who visited West Egg that summer. "My chapters are far more important to the movement of the story than Fitzgerald's Chapter 4."

Chastened, furious, Korda said "I guess Trish and I should read those chapters again." In the end the chapters stayed. The book became a New York Times bestseller, But S&S did not forgive. They withdrew Gage's second novel, Pandora's Box, from the stores after one week "for lack of interest."

Jay Garon, furious, moved Gage to Pocket Books, where she received big advances but zero promotion.

As a result, Gage never became a brand name novelist, but her five novels for S&S/Pocket and her two books for Mira remain cult classics with avid fans around the world. Her unique combination of violence, sex, and psychological depth set her far above the Krantzes and Collinses and Bradfords of the writing world.

Meanwhile, Gage went on to write novels under other pseudonyms which made a great deal of money and won publishing awards. She is now a literary novelist whose real identity is not known, and who doesn't have any problems paying the bills.

The reviews of PANDORA on this page leave little doubt about its quality. For those who admire it (Gage thought it was her best romantic book), remember what S&S did to it in 1990. As Proust said, "A good book will make its own audience." Eat your heart out, Korda and Lande. Elizabeth Gage will be around long after you're forgotten.

I read this book a few years ago, I haven't yet had a chance to reread it. From what I remember, my impressions from it were ones that will linger a long time. I felt what each character felt, and the images that were conjured up in Gage's word were spectacular. I honestly recommend this book for anyone who wants a little bit of everything on their plate. This is one book that you will want to stay up late at night with... it's that good!

I had Elizabeth Gage prior this book so I was acquainted with her style of writing and story-telling. Pandora's Box delivered the goods. The story was compelling from start to finish with interesting and interlocking characters, which I like. If there was one thing I would like to see is an updated version of this or something similar in story writing in 2010 or later with similar characters.

Loved this bok.

I read this book and loved it. For me it was not a long book at all, even being 714 or so pages long . I loaned it to a friend and never got it back,but thru' the years I have always reflected upon reading when discussing books, so I decided to get another copy of it. It is my #1 book following Flowers For Algernon, and Just Say No.

Elizabeth Gage's "Pandora's Box" is the book that I found very difficult to put down even though I knew very soon that it was not a timeless masterpiece that deserves Nobel Prize for Literature. The book is crowded with many characters, and it is easy to get lost among them. Some of them are simply un-realistic and their actions don't follow any logic. But it is a stylish and entertaining book that made me follow its three main characters with the interest. The 600 pages romance re-tells the ancient myth about Pandora, "a beautiful evil", "All-gifted" perfect woman desirable by every man because all the Olympians gave her a gift. Pandora was sent to Earth with the box containing all the world's evils which Gods forbade her to open. She was curious and opened it once releasing these evils, but closed the lid before Hope could escape. Gage's romance depicts many of the evils that have ruled the world of humans since Pandora let them out thousands of years ago. There are political intrigues, pathological jealousy, and cold calculation, pure evil that would ruin lives, break the sweetest dreams, and literally walk over dead bodies. But like in the myth of Pandora while there is life, there is hope which lives in the talent that creates not destroys and in love that is above the politics, power, and even death itself.

I checked this book out at the library a year ago and once I finally read it I have been searching everywhere for it. It was the best book I have ever read. Ms. Gage has a wonderful talent in storytelling. I agree with another review that it does start out confusing but DO NOT give up on it!!! This book delivers romance, mystery, you name it. I felt like I personally knew all of the characters. Never before has a book come to life the way this one did for me. You will feel the pains and the joys of every character you meet. I cried and laughed with them through it all. I recommend this book to anyone! Buy it!

I read this book probably more than 10 years ago. I loved the characters and the story. I could not put it down. When the story I ended, I actually missed it.

This book was so hard to put down , the plot is very hard to follow in the begging, but just hang in there it gets better. Gage is a wonderful story teller. The book has profanity and sex in it but not to bad. I would recomend this book to any one. You begin to live like your the characters, thinking what their next step will be, what will happen next. I began to actual think about the charcters even when I wasn't reading the book. So in conclusion it's a griping tale that you just can't put down.