Seduction [Hardcover]

Catherine Gildiner (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 496 pages
• Publisher: Knopf Canada; 1St Edition edition (2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0676976530
• ISBN-13: 978-0676976533
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,441,938 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was a psychologist in private practice in Toronto, Ontario until the age of 50. I left to become a writer. In 1999 I wrote my first book which is a memoir called TOO CLOSE TO THE FALLS. It is about my life from age four to fourteen. I worked full time from the age of four and delivered narcotics for my father's drug store with a black delivery car driver. The book is mostly about our adventures. To my infinite surprise it was on the Canadian best seller's list for 172 weeks and was published in several countries. It has been chosen by 'Now Magazine' as one of the ten best books of the decade.

With the success of TOO CLOSE TO THE FALLS I received hundreds of letter asking me 'What happened next?' This spurred me on the write volume two of my memoirs called AFTER THE FALLS 2009. ( 2010 in America) It covers my life in the 60's from age 13-21. I was arrested, caused a three alarm fire on my first job, and was investigated by the FBI. That is what happened without mentioning the family troubles!

Between writing my memoirs I decided to make us of a ph.d I'd done in another life time on 'Darwin's influence on Freud' so I wrote a Freudian thriller called SEDUCTION. (2005) It was also on the best seller's list and has been translated into several languages and was just nominated in Germany by 'Der Spiegel Magazine' as mystery of the year.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Without a doubt one of the most engaging thrillers this year!, August 27, 2005

By 

GreyEminence (Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seduction (Paperback)

I just finished reading 'Seduction' mere minutes ago, and as soon as I finished I felt compelled to leap into cyberspace and spread the word about this novel. 'Seduction' is an intelligent, fast-paced romp through the worlds of Darwinian and Freudian theory, with some murder most foul (not to mention some Wedgwood china history) thrown in for good measure. If this sounds too pedantic, be assured that it is anything but. In order to temper the rather intellectual premise, Gildiner has created one of the funniest, smartest and most engaging female protagonists / narrators in recent memory.

Kate Fitzgerald, an incarcerated felon-cum-Freudian scholar with her dead husband's blood on her hands, is one day plucked from her six-by-nine foot cell and recruited by an unctuous prison psychiatrist to investigate certain slanderous accusations being made against Sigmund Freud (and therefore the psychoanalytic community in general) by one Anders Konzak. Anders Konzak, a handsome intellectual golden boy and soon-to-be curator of the Freud archives, has suddenly (and in an embarassingly public fashion) denounced Freud as a [...] for unknown reasons. Kate is granted a temporary absence from prison, and along with another ex-con named Jackie, she begins to unravel the mystery behind Anders, Freud, and psychoanalysis itself.

Although Kate, an incredibly insightful and well-read woman, is a fascinating lead character on her own, much of the novel's interest stems from her volatile relationship with Jackie. She's a glacial WASP princess, he's a gruff thug with bad teeth, and although they are both very intelligent they approach the case with very different attitudes and often clash over each other's methodologies. However, as the novel progresses a pseudo-romantic relationship begins to develop. Now, a stereotypical romance between them would be far too cliched for a novel as original and inventive as this one, but their strained 'courtship' is touching in its own way.

This novel is, in many respects, similar to Dan Brown's 'The Da Vinci Code'. Both novels, while fictional, have a strong basis in historical fact, and both weave together factual information with fictional details in such a way as to create a dream-like ambience in which one is rarely sure what is real and what is not. This, however, is most certainly a good thing. Both novels also provide tantalizing glimpses into worlds that are most often highly cloistered and insular - in 'The Da Vinci Code' it was the Catholic Church, and in 'Seduction' it is the world of psychoanalysis and the highly guarded Freud Archives. However, personally I enjoyed 'Seduction' much more than 'The Da Vinci Code'. I found the narrative voice of 'Seduction' to be much more engaging and erudite than that of 'The Da Vince Code', and I found the characters to be much more compelling and fully-realized.

If you enjoy thrillers with a little more intelligence than most contemporary novels allow, then 'Seduction' definitely deserves a closer look. In addition to the well-drawn characters and an engaging, unpredictable plot, the novel is filled with fascinating tidbits about Freud, his daughter Anna (who, as a result of extensive psychoanalysis during adolescence at the hands of her own father, grew into a sexually repressed spinster), Charles Darwin, and even Josiah Wedgwood III. Pick it up - you might even learn something!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointed, November 24, 2007

By 

Anne (PERKASIE, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seduction (Paperback)

After having read Too Close To The Falls, this book was a disappointment. Too Close To The Falls was one of the most enjoyable books I have ever read and I was hoping Catherine Gildiner would write another book. Seduction had a decent mystery storyline and delightful detectives. The lengthy psychological discussions interferred with the flow of the story. Some of the discussions were necessary to the plot but it would have been a better book at 300 pages instead of almost 500 pages. I did find the information about Freud and Darwin interesting but was never sure what was truth and what was fiction. Unless someone is into psychology this isn't a "can't put it down" book.