Amazon.com Review
Ray in Reverse is such an exceptionally winning novel from start to finish (or would that be finish to start?) that one can almost forgive its opening chapter. The shtick: Ray's in heaven, and he's joined a group called Last Words, where the members... well, you guessed it, rehash the last things they said on Earth. As it turns out, the dead make for fierce critics, and when they criticize his offering (the incomplete phrase "I wish--"), Ray storms out in a huff.
Not so funny, actually, but what follows is--funny, as well as heartbreaking and all too real. From the second chapter onward, Ray relives the most prominent episodes of his life in reverse order, starting with his fatal cancer and working his way back. Here is Ray losing hair, growing wings, and trying to make his final amends; Ray building his son a tree house and getting drunk there every night; Ray with amnesia; Ray stealing the good-luck penny from his dead grandfather's pocket. The book ends with Ray's last act of true innocence, at age 10: "He was simply doing the right thing, and doing the right thing came to him as naturally as breathing. How could he have known that this was a talent that would be lost over time?"
Ray's is an ordinary life, with an ordinary mixture of good intentions and bad judgment, but it's also one in which extraordinary things happen. In Big Fish, his first novel, Daniel Wallace proved himself a master at mapping precisely the point where the mythic and the quotidian meet. With its gentle humor and pitch-perfect prose, Ray in Reverse is exactly the right kind of fairy tale for our unmagical times. --Mary Park
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Wallace follows his inventive debut novel, Big Fish, with another ingenious tragicomedy about a father and son, death and life, storytelling and reality. Beginning when a dead Ray Williams arrives in Heaven, the novel unfolds as the deceased proceeds to tell his life story backwards. As dodgy and shiftless in the afterlife as he was on Earth, Ray finds himself in Heaven's popular Last Words discussion group, where, for dramatic effect, he lies about his final utterances. A series of flashbacks reveals Ray's defining moments, including his real last words and what they meant, in a funny, poignant narrative that moves with the clarity of a fable and the complexity of modern psychology. Ray spent his life hidingAfrom the demands of marriage and fatherhood; from his fears of sexual ambiguityAand each chapter riffs on his signature confusion about reality. Ray builds a tree house for his 10-year-old son, James, then usurps it, using it as a getaway from his wife and life, drinking and dreaming about his girlfriend. Elsewhere, Ray walks through his life like a ghost, although it is 1982 and he's alive. Often in the wrong place at the wrong time, Ray can be a meddler, as when he chases bluebirds in the yard of the attractive widow next door or finds himself accidentally in the middle of another couple's messy divorce. Consistently, scenes of Ray's everyday life turn both farcical and insightful. When Ray writes a letter to an ex-girlfriend, he's honest, then heartfelt, then confused, then ridiculous, and then he starts over again. Wallace's stylistic tour-de-force, bolstered by the richness of his family portraits, humor and appreciation of ordinary people, demonstrates again extraordinary originality, craftsmanship and charm. Author tour. (Apr.) FYI: Big Fish was a Book Sense and Barnes & Noble Discovery selection.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
